Stepping Stones
by Mede
Summary: Hikaru had been playing Go for three years online as a hobby. Then his family moved "home" to Japan, he found a Go ghost in his backyard shed, and his father started nagging him to learn Japanese...
1. In which Hikaru discovers a Go ghost

Well, I had no intention of ever posting anything unless I'd already finished it, but after coming back from a break and looking at this story again I realized that I already had quite a lot written and was still interested in continuing and seeing where it goes from there. Plus I figure having it in progress online will motivate me to keep working on it more often. So, while I can't promise regular updates until it's done, I can promise that I'll do my best to get there eventually without leaving anybody hanging.

Oh, and if anyone has any better title suggestions, I welcome them. Titles and I rarely get along.

.

**Stepping Stones**

~1~ In which Hikaru discovers a Go ghost ~

Hikaru Shindo considered himself a fairly typical twelve-year-old. He enjoyed kicking around his soccer ball (not playing seriously; he didn't have enough interest to try to make a career out of it as his father had once pushed him to do), hanging out with his friends (one of whom was a girl, but was generously tolerated anyway despite her eye-rolling habit whenever the boys mentioned such things), and had developed a habit of playing an online strategy game called Go he had first discovered soon after his father had forbidden poker when Hikaru was nine. He considered the Internet an indispensable source of entertainment, information and communication; he was horrible at Spanish and good at math when the teachers let him get to the solution his own way rather than making him follow a particular process; his favorite video game was _Super Smash Bros_ and his favorite movie was _Star Wars Phantom Menace_. He was, in short, a perfectly normal _American_ preteen, despite being half Japanese.

Hikaru had never really learned or paid attention to much about Japan, to his father's everlasting annoyance, except for their manga (most of which he read online since his allowance usually went to snacks and movie tickets). The rest didn't have anything to do with him. And that was why, at twelve years old and having never traveled farther from the U.S. than the coast of California, he was chagrined to find out that his family was suddenly moving "home." Hikaru had always figured that _thirteen years_ in and a permanent visa to another country, not to mention meeting and marrying an English-only-speaking southern-heiress American blonde, didn't count as just a _business trip_ anymore, but apparently he had been laboring under a misconception. To Japan they were going.

"Start getting used to it," his father told him. "First off, you'll now be going by Shindo Hikaru. Family name first. Everything isn't Westernized at home."

"I'll _have_ to get used to it seeing as I'll be drowning in all the differences," Hikaru pointed out. "What about my oral history project next month? I'm supposed to be concentrating on the stock market crash, and the Rural Electrification Act, and now my grades are going to start dropping like rocks just before I'm transferring and needing to be at my best to get into a good school..."

"Drama queen," his mother said, amused.

"_Hikaru_!" his father exclaimed, aghast, the next time he entered the house. "What did you do to your _hair_?!"

"What?" Hikaru brushed aside his newly blond bangs with casual bewilderment. "I'm just upholding my pride in my nationality and American heritage before I'm irrevocably sundered from my roots and homeland forever."

"I'm so proud of you for using a dictionary, honey," his mother drawled._  
_

_And I ain't going somewhere where I'm going to look just like everybody else, either,_ Hikaru added to his friends in their online chatroom after updating them on the progress of The Departure. _Hey Ami, think you can do my whole head if I duck p.e. tomorrow?  
_

_No freakin' way, my sister already found the dye,_ Ami posted back. _Besides, I didn't want to tell you, but you'd make a terrible blond._

_I gotta agree with her on that one, dude,_ his former best friend Jamal betrayed him. _The bangs look good though._

_Your too smart to be blond anyway, even if you are a goofball,_ his other former best friend Trey heaped further coals upon his head.

_Yeah, sure, hit me when I'm down,_ Hikaru posted. _See if I remember any of you when I'm halfway around the world making new friends._

_No worries for us, _Jamal posted without even any little emoticon to show he actually felt remorse. _You won't be able to understand a word any of them are saying._

Hikaru grimaced at the screen and clicked out. That was true--despite his father's sporadic but unrelenting attempts to instill some of his homeland's culture in his son, Hikaru couldn't speak, read or write a word of any of the Japanese dialects. They were all horribly complicated and impossible to remember.

He paused and sent up a word of thanks for American schools in foreign countries, and the moving went on. Before the year was over he was looking around their new home--apparently not a totally traditional Japanese house, but still weirdly different from the real ones back in America--with not-very-motivated helplessness. His father seemed invigorated from being back on his native soil, directing Hikaru and his mother in how to slide the doors open and closed without breaking them and _under no circumstances_ to set foot beyond the entryway with their shoes still on, and what seemed like a thousand other totally irrelevant things...

_This is not my world,_ Hikaru posted to the chatroom he could still blessedly connect to with his old computer. As if to emphasize his new isolation, none of his friends was online to respond. He sighed deeply, logged off, and neglected all the miscellaneous chores his father had set him in favor of spending several hours downloading English-translated chapters of One Piece, Bleach, and Petshop of Horrors. He probably wouldn't be able to buy any volumes anymore that were actually readable.

.

_So, how's it going in the land of the weird?_ Jamal posted a few weeks after Hikaru's arguably successful transplantation.

_Thank God for the American school with people I can actually understand,_ Hikaru immediately typed. _All the other students aren't natives either. I dunno though, except for that I haven't really got anything in common with them so far. And everybody *else*--gah! You know what Japanese students do to hang out besides the girls shopping? *Karaoke*! Seriously, it's like a national pastime or something!  
_

_Oh, I so want to see you standing up on stage belting some song you can't even pronounce the lyrics to, _Ami posted. _With a bunch of girls sighing and giggling, and all the grownups gasping and clutching their hearts and collapsing..._

_Here comes Pe-ter Cott-ontail, skipp-ing down the bunn-y trail,_ Hikaru posted irrepressibly.

_Iiit's a small world aff-ter alll,_ Trey joined in.

_I like big butts and I cannot lie, you otha brothas can't deny,_ Jamal posted. Hikaru whooped with laughter, drawing a half-attentive call of "Now now honey, no animated eviscerations before dinner."

.

"So, son, how is your Japanese progressing?" his father asked as he had started doing practically every night as they sat on the floor around the table--on the floor not because their furniture hadn't arrived, but because his father insisted cushions were supposed to be furniture now.

"Uh... fine, okaa-san," Hikaru pronounced, with careful attention to repeating the word exactly as he heard it earlier.

His father, unappreciative of the effort his son had put in, thunked his head against the heel of his hand. "That's _mother_!"

"Great food, okaa-san," Hikaru said, unbothered by his mistake.

"Thank you, dear," his mother said with a complacent smile. Her husband had tried giving her several English cookbooks with Japanese recipes in them since the family's arrival; so far they had resulted in casseroles, spaghetti, and macaroni and cheese just like she had always cooked for them back home. Hikaru figured his father was putting up less of a fuss about her slowness to adapt than Hikaru's because he was waiting for her stored supplies from America to run out. He just hoped she would manage to pull out a secret stash even after that.

.

_C'mon, seriously, what do you actually do over there?_ Jamal posted.

_Basically nothing,_ Hikaru reiterated. _Well, basically same as ever except without everything I did with you guys. Surfin the Net mostly. I'd try playing Go with some of the other kids from school except the only time I mentioned it nobody even knew what it was.  
_

_That is so an old people game, I'm always telling you, _Trey posted. _Seriously, who enjoys staring at this big grid putting down checker pieces? Can't you just see the ancient grandpappies sitting all in a row out in a park playing that game as if it was chess? Who likes chess?  
_

_People with brains,_ Ami posted. _People who enjoy thinking. Being able to out-think other people. You wouldn't understand.  
_

_Oh, hey, you will *not* believe what I found out in the shed behind the house last week,_ Hikaru posted. _It's a great shed, the last owner stored all his junk there and didn't clean out when he moved, I'm thinking of clearing it out some and putting some of it up on eBay if I can figure out how to post in English but sell in Japan.  
_

_This is fascinating,_ Jamal posted.

_Edge of my seat. Tell on,_ Trey posted.

_Shut up, morons,_ Hikaru posted good-humoredly. _So anyway, I found this Go board in there--it's like a little wood table with legs, and it's got the grid on top, and even has two bowls of stones, black and white. And it's got a ghost.  
_

_Ghost?_ Trey repeated.

_Oh, boy, I knew it was going to be trouble sending you off all by yourself like that,_ Jamal posted.

_Shut up, morons,_ Ami posted. _Stop provoking them, Ru. What d'you mean by ghost?  
_

_I mean ghost, I swear,_ Hikaru typed, enjoying himself. _I saw the board, I was like 'oh, cool, it looks you could play Go on that' and *bam* this flowy whitey guy pops up from nowhere sitting on the other side of the board and waving this fan at the stone bowls. He looked like a little puppy dog, all 'let's play! let's play! please please please?'_

_A Go ghost,_ Ami repeated after a moment in which none of his friends seemed to be able to find anything to respond.

_Well, I dunno really,_ Hikaru relented, figuring he had well and truly stumped them. _Dad keeps telling me how Japan's all so high-tech and everything but there's all this weird old stuff around, and I can't understand anything I see or hear. I figure it's either a Go ghost or some kind of hologram project that got dumped or something, you know like those computers that are supposed to be able to beat chess masters eventually? I tried playing a game against it just to see--that sucker is set on Elite level at least, I'm pretty good online but it totally creamed me, kept tch'ing and shaking its head and sighing whenever I moved. Stupid thing.  
_

_Aw, almighty hotshot, beaten by a player who's not even real,_ Jamal posted, recovering promptly to tease him.

_You have got to get a life, how sad will it be if you start hanging out in your shed to play an old people game with some old guy ghost?_ Trey posted, following the lead.

_You should see if anybody else at your school likes soccer,_ Ami advised. _Or start a movie club or something. You gotta hang out with somebody sometime._


	2. In which Hikaru's father tries Go

**Stepping Stones**

~2~ In which Hikaru's father "tries" Go ~

Despite his friends' advice, as time passed Hikaru found he wasn't particularly bothered by not forming any friendships as close as the ones he had back in America. With their constant communication in the chatroom, he didn't even miss them too much. And in the meantime he surfed the Net, exchanged jokes and news from the U.S. of A. with some of the kids at the American school, and established the old shed behind his house as his own personal territory. His mother embarrassingly called it his "clubhouse."

.

_I decided to call it Kilimanjaro since it really is like climbing a mountain, _Hikaru posted in reference to his unofficially dubbed "Go ghost."_ It's getting *seriously* annoying, I swear it keeps playing tutoring games against me no matter what I try!_

_You should see if there's a market and start selling them, _Jamal posted._ You could call them JapApps, and give them mountain names according to their difficulty. Everest should be worst._

_Climbing a mountain isn't hard just because of height, _Ami posted._ How would you include cliffs? Avalanches? Walking trails and roads there or not?_

_And you guys say *I* need to get a life, _Hikaru posted.

.

It wasn't that Hikaru was particularly passionate about Go, just that he was a fairly intelligent boy with an interest in it who suddenly found himself divested of most of his other previous pastimes, so he naturally over time started giving more attention to it. He came to think of it, in the face of the ghost's unwavering level of skill, as beating the game _at least once_ or dying trying.

Jaro would have been a funny opponent if it hadn't always been so merciless or condescending. It gabbled presumably in Japanese in a lecturing tone quite often, and its face could shift from utterly serious to childishly amused in a heartbeat. Hikaru had never played anyone before except over the computer, and thought that it would be a much easier adjustment playing _anyone_ else, especially one a little closer to his level.

The ghost tapped its fan at the spots it chose for its stones, since, being immaterial, it couldn't actually place them, and started tapping faster if Hikaru took too long placing its stone or considering his own move. Sometimes when it seemed to feel Hikaru was being particularly dense it would start smacking at his hand with the fan, over and over whirring like a little bee because the fan moved so fast--and it didn't matter that the fan was immaterial too; Hikaru's brain never managed to turn off the instinct that _something was coming at him and it was going to sting_--and flinching in reaction annoyed him even if the ghost didn't even seem to notice.

Once, just to see what would happen, Hikaru placed Jaro's stone in a different spot than where the fan was pointing. For a second the fan and extended arm were utterly still and silent, and Hikaru glanced up to see the ghost's expression was a contortion of shock and something like unbelieving righteous outrage. Hikaru broke into unabashed laughter and moved the stone where it was supposed to go before the ghost recovered.

When it did it stared at him long and meaningfully, not saying a word or making a motion, while Hikaru rolled his eyes and told it to just take a joke and get back to the game. It stared at him even more piercingly, said something incomprehensible in its other language, and turned around, crossed its arms, and refused to stir. Hikaru shrugged, swept the stones off into their pots, and wandered outside to go look around Tokyo a little more. The ghost snubbed him for another day or two, but it really didn't last very long without any games against him (and therefore against anyone). Hikaru could only wonder what had upset it so much anyway.

.

_I'm getting so bored of always the same thing, _he posted, utterly ignoring all his friends' pointing out that they didn't care about Go, just like they ignored everyone else's disinterest in their own hobbies._ I figured since hey, I've got a board now, I'd try and lay out a few of the games online and see if they look any different offscreen, but that stupid Jaro won't let me be both sides! It just does its thrum-whapping on my hands or sits there and pouts or gives me puppy-dog eyes. How stupid is it to have to get a new board just to *not* play against one opponent?_

_But he's *lone-ly*, Hi-ka-ruu, _Trey posted, with several silly emoticon faces._ You're his only *friieend*._

_What kind of moron would leave behind a Go board and ghost anyway? _Hikaru typed._ I oughta just shut the shed up again and leave well enough alone. _But he didn't really have any intention of doing so. He still hadn't beaten the game.

.

The first time he found and printed a few tip sheets for facing high-level players on the Net and decided to take them to the shed to consult while playing brought an unexpected reaction from the Go ghost. Hikaru just sat down on his side of the board like usual, took the pot of black stones and plopped one down to begin a game, and started looking at the sheets. He did know that he would still have to pay attention to place Jaro's stone, but it still startled him when the ghost suddenly moved to his side and leaned over his shoulder with an unintelligible exclamation and rapt attention directed at the papers. Hikaru jerked back, turned and stared at him.

"Jeez! _What_?"

The fan aimed at the topmost lines of explanation under the example diagrams, followed by a flow of excited, disbelieving chatter. The fan brandished several times in emphasis of presumable points.

"What?" Hikaru repeated, annoyed. "Yeah, duh, I haven't been babbling like a nutcase all this time after all, I'm just speaking a different language than you. _En-glish_. Not so dumb after all? Maybe something is capable of getting through that thick skull if I just start thwapping more? Bug off, it's not like you can read it."

But his order had no effect on the ghost. After it finally calmed slightly, it sat itself down on its side of the board again very precisely as always and, instead of tapping its move, announced something indistinguishable with a proud air and looked at him expectantly.

"No speak-a Japanese-a," Hikaru drawled.

With a very exaggerated gesture, the ghost pointed its fan at itself and enunciated a short phrase.

"Fujiwaranosai," Hikaru repeated, muttering, with a frown. "Fujiawara Nosai, Fujiwarano Sai--Sai Fujiwarano?... 'no', that's like... uh... Fujiwara of the Sai? Uh, Sai of--Fujiwa ra Nosai...?"

The ghost made an exasperated sound.

"Hey, Fuji!" Hikaru exclaimed, giving up on attempting to parse the language. "That's a Japanese mountain, isn't it--okay, Fuji it is."

The ghost repeated the original phrase, sounding distinctly more bad-tempered.

"Hikaru Sh--I mean, Shindo Hi--gah. _Hi-ka-ru_," Hikaru said, pointing to himself.

_"Hikaru,"_ the ghost repeated impatiently.

"Hey, great!" Hikaru beamed at it. "Hikaru, Fuji. I dunno though, I kinda got used to Jaro. Okay, okay. C'mon, play. You don't put something down I'm gonna win by forfeit, okay? _You-no-play--me win_."

The ghost whacked at him with the fan. Hikaru would've given anything to be able to switch it out with a flyswatter and see how long it took Jaro--Fuji to notice.

.

"Hey mom! Ohayo!" Hikaru shouted as he entered the house, kicking off his shoes almost without a pause as he hurried on to his room.

"Hi honey, how was school?" his mother answered absently from the kitchen in a tone that didn't actually expect a response.

"That's _good morning_," his father's voice followed in a groan, also from the kitchen. "_Formally_. Can it really be this hard? Am I cursed with a son incapable of learning anything?"

"He learned Go," his mother pointed out mildly. "That looks like a pretty complex game."

"_Games_," his father uttered despondently.

"Hey, don't knock 'em 'til you've tried 'em!" Hikaru called, taking advantage of their new house's paper-thin walls.

.

"Keep your shoes on, Ru," Hikaru's mother called just as he was in the act of kicking them off.

"What? Why?" he asked, quickly stuffing them back on as she came into the hallway.

"Your father found a Go tournament you can enter today," she said with a smile. "I suppose it's his way of 'trying' it."

"Aw mom, I don't wanna play with a bunch of old geezers, there's enough of them online," Hikaru groaned. "They nitpick everything! Do I have to?"

"Considering he already signed you up, I'd say so," his mother replied. At his second groan, she pointed out, "Well, it's not like you could have gotten in without help, honey. Come on, there might be a few _young_ geezers in it, like you're turning into. Your father says Go is actually much bigger in Japan than it is in America."

"Fine," Hikaru sighed, taking the paper she offered and glancing down at it uncomprehendingly. "Oh--is this how to get there?"

"I had him draw a map," his mother agreed, looking pleased. "Since it's so hard to distinguish all those signs from one another."

"Tell me about it," Hikaru muttered, glancing at the directions again and then stuffing them into his backpack. "So I gotta go now? When does it start?"

His mother glanced at their clock. "I think he said about four."

Hikaru stifled a swear word since his mother was present and took off running. His mother just smiled after him.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everybody who reviewed, and sorry this chapter is a little shorter than the last one. Given a couple of comments in the reviews I got, just in case this chapter didn't clear things up enough, let me take a shot at explaining Sai's situation in this story: Since this is AU anyway, Sai didn't bond to Hikaru when they met. He's haunting the goban, and that's all; it's not very logical to me that he could possess more than one thing. And, much as it pains me, Hikaru still isn't a particularly sensitive boy, so he's not thinking of Sai as a real person yet, and won't for a while--though I promise they'll get there eventually. It's more about him than him and Sai, if that makes sense; Sai will just become more important to him later.


	3. In which Hikaru plays in a Go tournament

**Stepping Stones**

~**3**~ In which Hikaru takes part in a Go tournament ~

Hikaru did not enjoy playing the bunch of old geezers, especially since it was in person. They were either irritated or condescending about his apparent inexperience holding the stones--just because all of them seemed to use some kind of stupid unnecessary index-middle finger balancing act--and grumbled at his posture, just because he didn't sit rigidly straight for hours on end like them. Hikaru played each game with one or the other elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, slumped to the left or right, keeping himself entertained by trying to set up a hierarchy in his head of how each of the geezers' levels ranked compared to the ghost's. He mumbled his way through the Japanese they recited at the beginning of the game each time, pretending to just be uninterested in (presumable) formalities.

He noticed, peripherally, that fewer and fewer people were playing as time went on, which made sense considering his mother had called it a tournament, but he just kept following the other people who won and doing the same as they did to record their wins, then going to whatever table he was pointed to for the next game. He got increasingly preoccupied since it took a surprising mental twist and focus to integrate the aim of just playing up to the ghost's level as much as possible and the aim of actually beating the opponent like online--real-life playing, unexpectedly, had a totally different atmosphere--but he mastered it, increasingly motivated the once or twice he came close to losing.

With his preoccupation, it came as a total surprise to finish his last game and realize that he and his opponent were playing the only game left. Then there were a bunch of people clustering around him, none of whom he could understand, and he was being ushered up onto some kind of platform while everyone clapped and smiled and looked at him. Hikaru surreptitiously checked for exits while the (presumable) spokesperson started some kind of monologue.

He perked up when he caught sight of the shiny trophy being handed to him, but deflated again when nothing else seemed to follow. A cash prize would have been worth playing for, not that he yet trusted himself to count and dispense yen accurately, but what good was a trophy except for bragging to people who didn't care? But everyone was still smiling and looking at him while he tried to figure out how to hold the trophy comfortably without looking like an idiot, and the spokesperson was making little expectant motions at him.

Crap. What was the word for 'thank you'? 'It's an honor'?

"Uhh... sorry, mute. Can't speak a word. Gee, thanks awfully, thrilled, shocked, always grateful, gotta run. Bye!"

He edged back and then hurried to the door, feeling a little embarrassed at having to escape these people but not really wanting to spend any more time there anyway. He felt like an idiot going home with the stupid trophy under his arm, and dumped it in a corner as soon as he got to his room. So much for Go in real life. He didn't even feel like playing Fuji. He'd probably get creamed after spending so long at high amateur level rather than ungodly master.

Hikaru logged online and started browsing the Internet Movie Database to see what was coming out back in America that he would, yet again, have to miss. _Crap_. Maybe if he could find one of those questionably legal streaming websites that worked in Japan...?

.

"Honey," his mother said, stopping Hikaru as he was about to head out the door. "Going to your clubhouse?"

"Yeah. It's just a shed," he said automatically, wondering what she wanted. She gestured for him to sit down with her at the real table she had somehow managed to convince his father to buy. He did so. He wasn't in any particular hurry; humble pie tasted the same warm or cold.

"How's your Japanese coming?" she asked.

Hikaru stared at her. He was used to hearing that every other sentence from his dad, but from his _mom_--she was supposed to be his ally. His only other totally-American helpless-without-English person in the whole country so far besides at school.

He shrugged. "Lousy as ever. Why?"

"Your father just got a promotion in his company."

"O-kay... great?" he offered, clueless as to what that had to do with anything.

"That's just meant to emphasize a point. I'm beginning to wonder if it's really sunk into you that we're not going to be moving again."

Hikaru sat and blinked for a moment. Of course he knew that. Unless maybe... well, no, he knew that. Japan was where they lived now. America only used to be home. "Yeah, I know."

"You've adapted admirably to the move," his mother continued, smiling briefly at him. "In fact I was a little surprised you handled it so maturely and even helped out so much. And you seem to find enough to do every day with school and your computer and clubhouse."

"Yeah," Hikaru repeated, still just sitting there.

"But you're not adapting to the new culture around you, honey. You can't interact with anyone you meet outside of school. You can't take in any movies or books or even wander around the city much without risking getting lost. You're only twelve--it should be far easier for you to get used to a new country than me."

"Well--but--I dunno," Hikaru protested. "I'm just horrible with other languages, Mom, you know that; I never got more than a C even in Spanish, and that's supposed to be easy. Japanese's _hard_."

"It's hard just like Spanish was hard," his mother agreed, looking him in the eye. "Because you don't use it in your day-to-day life."

Hikaru squirmed a little, because his only answer to that was 'Er.' The entire rest of the conversation was now clear to him. "'S'not like it's easy to talk with people when you only know like three words," he attempted to defend himself.

"Ru--" His mother reached out and squeezed his hand. "You are brilliant when you choose to be, no matter what the subject. You're not choosing to be brilliant applying yourself to this new language. And you can see how much that's shutting you out of. So why don't you want to?"

He shifted again, a little uncomfortable. "Yeah, I can see everything I could be doing if I could communicate with people. But--well--I don't _want_ to, Mom. I'm not interested in any of it. All those people--everything is so--_different_; they're not the same kinds of movies, not the same kind of food, not the same kind of interests. Seriously, can you see me going out with a bunch of friends to _sing karaoke_ after school? _Ever_?"

"Hikaru, karaoke is hardly the only thing Japanese children like to do," his mother laughed. "Take the time to actually look for things that appeal more to you. Ask some of the other American students about things they've found around the city that they like. Just be willing to open your mind a little."

"Okay, okay," Hikaru conceded, mostly to get out of the conversation. "I really gotta go now Mom, I left my computer running and I have this project I gotta have ready before school tomorrow..."

"You were heading out before," his mother pointed out mildly, amused, but her son didn't even hear as he was already leaving.

.

Hikaru was surprised beyond belief to hear a Japanese voice hail him as soon as he stepped out of the school gate, so much so that if he hadn't seen a Japanese boy who looked a little older than him waving at him he would have assumed he didn't have anything to do with it. But since the kid clearly was looking at him, Hikaru stood there and stared dumbly as the boy came running up, another taller and even older-looking boy in tow. The kid let out a stream of excited meaninglessness when he reached him while jabbing his finger at Hikaru several times.

"He say you play Go?" the taller boy said carefully with an unpracticed accent. "See you... win Go...?"

"Yes!" Hikaru cheered, throwing his book up in the air and not even noticing when it crashed to the sidewalk. "English! Hallelujah glory! Nice to meet you, beautiful examples of civilization in the foreign wasteland! Let's go get some pizza and celebrate!"

The two Japanese boys looked at each other; the shorter one said something, and the taller one stifled something. Then he turned back to Hikaru and asked haltingly, "You... have play Go?"

"Yeah, sure," Hikaru agreed, hardly able to believe that a semi-English-speaking Japanese stranger should approach him who also happened to know the game. "Yes. Why?"

The shorter boy looked triumphant, and said something to the taller one again. The taller one listened, then explained to Hikaru, "He say English win Go tournament, think look at English school--he happy he right."

"Genius. You should be so proud of that awesome level of explanation, too," Hikaru said to the shorter one. "Hey, c'mon, let's not just stand around here talking. Got a place to go--er, hang out? Uh, food? Arcade? Park? You know, anything?"

The taller one conferred with the shorter one, then the shorter one nodded and waved Hikaru along as he started off down the street. Hikaru grabbed his schoolbook before he forgot it and followed readily, stuffing it into his backpack as he went.

They showed him to some kind of small Japanese shop offering food, the only option of which he recognized was ramen. So he pointed to that, trusting that the other two could truthfully show him correct change if the price proved complicated. He had no idea what food they chose when they ordered or when it arrived.

"So, who are you guys anyway? Why find me?" he asked as they all waited to dig in. "Oh, I'm Hikaru Sh--I mean, Shindo Hikaru. You?"

He got their names as Waya something-longer (the shorter one) and Isumi something-longer (the taller one), so he mentally labeled them Waya and Isumi before he remembered that those were their last names. Oh well. Japanese people seemed big on formality and familiarity anyway.

"So you play Go too?" he asked genially as his ramen arrived--with chopsticks. Crap.  
_  
Noodles_ and _water_ with _chopsticks_?! Were these people _completely_ insane?!

"Yes," Isumi said, after shoving Waya out of the booth with a short direction. "You win Meijin?"

"Huh?"

Waya returned with, blessedly, a spoon. Hikaru grabbed it with a happy sigh and started eating.

"Small Meijin tournament," Isumi repeated carefully, seeming to pay close attention to his words. Actually he spoke pretty good English, much better than Hikaru had heard so far outside of school.

"Beats me what it was called--wait..." He leaned over and dug around in his backpack for the crumpled directions he had shoved in and never bothered to find and throw away--there was a line of Japanese characters along the top of the paper. And his father said he should clean his bag out more often. "Does that say what it was?"

Waya leaned forward to look and took it out of his hand. He pointed at the characters while jabbering at Isumi.

"Yes," Isumi agreed, a smile spreading across his face. "Meijin. You win?"

That question had already been repeated several times, Hikaru was sure, but this time it sounded like personal curiosity. "Yeah, I guess," he said, shrugging. "They gave me a trophy. Prize? But no money. Waste of time."

Waya spoke again. Isumi listened, then translated, "He want play you."

Hikaru blinked, surfacing from his ramen. "Why?"

Translate, pause, translate. "He say surprising English win. He want know how good your Go."

"Don't tell me those geezers were anything special. Come on, that had to be like a totally open tournament for me to have been able to get in. Say I'll play him online. GoStar."

Isumi frowned slightly, evidently not recognizing the website. Then again, Hikaru had no idea if it had an option for navigating in Japanese. Well, he knew of a couple other sites, even if he didn't visit them much...

"NetGo?"

Isumi's expression cleared. Even Waya appeared to understand the name. They quickly agreed to meet on NetGo that night, and exchanged screen names (probably incomprehensible to both receiving parties, but useful for matching visually) and phone numbers, even though Hikaru didn't think phoning would be very practical considering it would require the other two being on the same line if Waya wanted to be included. Well, maybe they were brothers--no, duh, Waya and Isumi were the last names and those couldn't possibly be two different pronunciations for the same word. Surely.

"You're late," his father called from the kitchen when Hikaru got home.

"Networking," Hikaru yelled back, heading to his room minus shoes. "Can I eat in my room?"

"No. And stop making excuses you don't even put any effort into!"

"Okay, next time I'll come up with a real doozy," Hikaru smirked. "The elephants attacked. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and the news crews blocked up all the roads home so I had to wait until they cleared. I got on the train exactly on time but it was hijacked by terrorists in samurai costumes who made us all stand against the wall and guess what era of swords they were holding..."

"Hikaru!"

* * *

A/N: Okay, here's chapter three, and again thanks very much to all the reviewers who left feedback! Things have calmed down a little in real life so I should finally have time to start replying individually. As for the tournament--no, it wasn't the children's one, but I hope it's still at least relatively reasonable that Hikaru managed to win? My logic is basically just that he really has learned a lot from Sai already. I don't actually play Go myself so I don't know if the progress I'm trying to show him making is realistic, random, or just totally off the wall. :)


	4. In which Hikaru visits a Go salon

**Stepping Stones**

~**4**~ In which Hikaru is introduced to Go salons ~

_You will not believe the drama that's happening at school right now,_ Ami posted. _The math teacher--remember him, Mr. McNasty?--got fired because it turned out he was selling weed to the high school students after hours. Can you believe it? In our own school!_

_Your school,_ Hikaru reminded her. _Weed--yeah, totally unbelievable. Did you get any before he got arrested?_  
_  
Hikaru!_ she posted, then followed it with a little laughing face. _You are such a brat!_

_Guilty as charged._

_So, what's happening with you lately?_

_Nothin' much. Been playing a few games online with a couple Japanese guys I met. So far I'm 3-2 with Go and 2-2 with Missile Command. I've almost got his game figured out though._  
_  
We always knew it'd be other nerds you'd meet after us,_ Ami posted with a smiley face emoticon.

_A smart bomb falls toward your city. __My defending missile flies off on the total other side of the screen.__ You go boom. I laugh,_ Hikaru typed.

.

"Where are we going?" Hikaru asked, bewildered, when Waya and Isumi showed up again in front of his school out of the blue and started dragging him off.

"Go salon," Isumi explained. It sounded exactly like the first time he said it, but it still made no sense to Hikaru. Salons were beauty parlors and hair and nail places and stuff, weren't they? What did Isumi think he was saying?

Waya added something, and Isumi translated, "We want see you play other people. Will be fun."

"Fun for you or me?" Hikaru complained, but went along willingly enough. Waya and Isumi didn't seem that much older than him, especially Waya; maybe they had places they went to play Go with other decent kids rather than geezers.

The Go salon--for lack of a better term--did turn out to be full of old geezers, but they at least seemed a little more lively than the ones Hikaru had interacted with before. Several of them seemed to recognize and greet Waya and Isumi. Hikaru could tell he was the subject of several questions, but he had no idea what they actually consisted of, which might have annoyed him if he hadn't dismissed them all.

Waya threw his arm around Hikaru's shoulders as he appeared to answer, whatever he was saying drawing several impressed and disbelieving looks and more questions. Isumi noticed long enough to take pity on Hikaru's ignorance and tell him, "We say you English, win small Meijin, they say you young, not look like Go player."

"What, so now they're all waiting for the little monkey to open its mouth and start its tricks?" Hikaru asked, still mostly good-humored rather than grumbling. He glanced around at the geezers paying attention and shrugged deliberately. "They just wanna stare, or can any of them actually play?"

Isumi translated for him with a pause that might have been diplomatic editing. He was a polite sort, not the kind Hikaru usually hung out with--the ex-American actually got along much more naturally with Waya despite the language barrier--but Hikaru was no longer as choosy as he used to be. Besides, the older boy was a pretty good Go opponent.

Several of the geezers presented immediate challenges that required no translation after Isumi's words. Hikaru found himself sitting down against the most forceful one--and one who actually didn't look old enough to qualify as a geezer--who grabbed his arm and pointed at a table.

Despite the almost rude-seeming handling, the guy rattled off the introductory phrase that Hikaru had heard repeated over and over at the tournament. And this time there was enough attention on him that his mumbling wouldn't go unnoticed.

"Er--onigamisu," he tried.

Waya and several of the geezers watching choked. His opponent threw his head back and laughed.

"Onegaishimasu," Isumi sounded out for him slowly.

"Onegaishimasu," Hikaru repeated, concentrating on it intently, and repeated it several times mentally. 'Onegaishimasu.' Meaning--what? "What's it in English?"

Isumi thought for a moment. "Please. Give guidance," he finally said.

That seemed a little stupid, but Hikaru nodded. "Got it."

His opponent reached across the table and ruffled his hair. Hikaru batted at his hand, annoyed, and made the first move without giving his opponent the option of choosing his color. The guy laughed again and played his own move.

It was weird playing Go when he was aware of so many people watching, harder to concentrate on the game--but, automatically starting to categorize the guy against the ghost like he had last time he'd played in person, he was fairly sure pretty quickly that this guy was only halfway there tops. More like a third tops. Hikaru could beat him, and knowing that made it a lot easier to concentrate. The ghost was turning out to be useful in that respect even if it was still impossible to have a close-to-real match against it.

Actually, playing the ghost was probably also the reason he'd started finding his old opponents too easy and spurting up notches of ranks online. Or it was partly the reason, anyway; he did pretty much do nothing else but Go at least a quarter of almost every day now.

His current opponent, thankfully, turned out to be a better loser than most of the geezers at the tournament had been. Several of the geezers watching reacted much the same as those other players, though, muttering in disbelief.

"Anybody else?" Hikaru asked, stretching deliberately and faking a yawn. But he had to duck before he finished when the guy swatted at him again.

"Kawai-san say you brat," Isumi said a laughing tone. "He say bad you good as you say."

Hikaru stuck out his tongue at the guy--Kawai. Wait, wasn't that supposed to mean 'cute'? "Tell him I've had better games against my granny." Never minding, of course, that his American grandmother had died when he was two and he was only vaguely aware that his Japanese grandmother could be around somewhere. Kawai seemed the type to understand the sentiment properly.

Kawai made an absurd face at him and dramatically retired from the Go table. One of the nitpickiest-looking geezers immediately took his place.

"Onegaishimasu," Hikaru said promptly, holding out the pots to let the geezer pick his color. Instead of appreciating Hikaru's politeness the geezer glared at him and lectured at Isumi in a dry rasping voice.

Isumi explained something back to him, then asked Hikaru, "You know nigiri?"

Hikaru thought. He had never heard of 'nigiri,' but presumably it meant that little ritual from the tournament in which Hikaru had followed his opponent's lead and somehow ended up with one color or the other. He wrinkled his nose, frowning, and carefully set the pots down. The geezer made a 'ha' grunt.

Hikaru dipped his hand into the pot of white stones, came up with a fistful, and held it suspended over the board. The geezer dropped two black stones onto the board. Hikaru turned his hand up, let the white stones spill out, and arranged them into two rows of four with one left over. The geezer didn't move.

The number of white was odd. The number of black was even. The geezer hadn't guessed correctly. Hikaru put his stones back and handed the geezer the pot of white, taking the black, the color that got to go first, for himself. The geezer grunted grudgingly and pushed the two black stones over to him. Hikaru added them to his pot, turned to look up at Waya and Isumi and asked, "Nigiri?"

Isumi nodded, smiling. Waya clapped him on the back. The geezer harrumphed and gestured at the board.

Hikaru played. The geezer was even worse than the first guy, Kawai; the game seemed to take forever. And, of course, the geezer was a very ungracious loser. Hikaru was surprised when rather than rising immediately and leaving the geezer instead kept sitting there, jabbing a finger at different areas of the board and starting to speak in a dry, grim tone.

He glanced back at Waya and Isumi helplessly. Isumi started explaining, "He discuss game after end. Where mistake, where other option, how could be different..."

"And the part about me being totally ignorant of the language somehow escaped him...?" Hikaru asked, glancing back to the geezer, who had kept talking even grimmer while he was being ignored.

Waya made a dismissive sound and gesture, but Isumi sighed, brought over another chair, and started translating laboriously for the geezer, who showed his appreciation by refusing to slow down, back up or simplify. Hikaru didn't pay him any attention. What was there to learn from a game he won?

"No offense, but that really wasn't very exciting," Hikaru said to the duo after they left, stretching in the fresh evening air after sitting so long. "How come you guys go there?"

"Training," Isumi said. "Better Go when play more people."

Well, that did make sense. Hikaru thought that even better Go came from playing against the impossible, though; he'd probably learned a lot more from the ghost's incessant tutoring than he had all three years before online. And still not actually any closer to beating its game.

"Fun to see small Meijin play them, too," Isumi added for Waya after he had updated for his friend. "They not believe you so good."

Hikaru just shrugged. "What makes one tournament any different from another? It could've just been luck there wasn't anyone better in that one. And what's meijin mean, anyway?"

Isumi, and by extension Waya, stopped and stared at him. Actually Waya almost ran into Isumi, which made him stop and question him irritably--Isumi told him something incomprehensible, and then both of them stared at him. Waya's jaw actually dropped.

"What?" Hikaru demanded, annoyed.

"All tournament same?" Isumi repeated slowly, as though he wanted to be sure he had heard and understood right the first time. "You not know Meijin?"

"I know _no_ Japanese, remember?" Hikaru reminded them impatiently. "Seriously, what'd I say? What's meijin?"

"Meijin--title," Isumi struggled to explain. "Meijin--big. Small Meijin--big to small player."

Small meijin hadn't meant much before, but now Hikaru suspected it was a not very good English substitution, because small player was ridiculous. He wasn't that short, and not all the old geezers had been that hunched. What could it mean?

"Small player... someone who plays in tournaments?" he guessed, puzzled.

"Y--no," Isumi said, frustrated. "It..." He turned to Waya, and they quizzed each other briefly, presumably trying to come up with a way to explain the inexplicable. They didn't appear to come to a very satisfactory agreement.

"Some people play Go--fun. Not work. Little time Go," Isumi finally said slowly. "Some people play Go--work. Every day Go. Teach, play. Job."

Hikaru blinked at them. "Professional?" He blinked again. "There are people who play Go _professionally_?"

But then again, that was what chess Grand Masters were--at least he thought--so it might be reasonable to have some kind of tiny professional Go world once he adjusted to that as conceivable. But--good grief. He couldn't possibly have gotten involved with that just by playing in one public tournament, could he? Or could anybody become professional in Go in Japan just by deciding to and playing and paying a lot, like poker? Had there been an entrance fee on that tournament his father had paid for him?

"Okay... professional. Some people play Go professional, some people--me--" he jabbed his chest with his thumb for emphasis, "play Go amateur. Okay? So not small--_amateur_."

"Professional," Isumi repeated carefully. "Amateur."

"Right." Hikaru thought again. "So amateur meijin--I got some kind of title? Amateur title? How important is it?" The trophy he'd gotten from the tournament had disappeared at some point under a pile of clothes he hadn't taken time to put away or decide if they really counted as dirty or not. If it was even still in the same place. "It can't be that big a deal, can it?"

Waya made what sounded like a demand for information up to that point. Isumi complied, received a comment, and got back to Hikaru, "Professional Meijin very big in Go--one most high title. Amateur Meijin... like same, amateur."

Hikaru blinked again. Crap. How could he have won a big deal amateur title when he didn't even know what it was called? How big a difference was it from professional? "Does it matter? I mean, like--there isn't anything I missed like contracts or something, is there? There isn't anything I'm supposed to do or someplace I'm supposed to be? No obligations?"

What had he gotten himself into? Or rather, what had his stupid father gotten him into? If he was in trouble without even knowing...

"No, no," Isumi assured him. "Amateur nothing but--talk about. Nothing but proud. No duty with title."

Hikaru let out a deep sigh of relief. Waya laughed.

"You not know nothing about Go?" Isumi translated, looking slightly embarrassed although he probably couldn't phrase it more tactfully. "But play so good?"

"I know the _game_, not all this with the--the other people and the real-life stuff," Hikaru defended himself. "I learned it on the Internet--online. NetGo. I never knew there _was_ all this with titles and tournaments and professionals and who knows what else! Online everything's casual!"

Isumi translated, with a faint frown that made Hikaru wonder how much of what he said was being translated accurately, and then Waya grinned and put his arm around Hikaru's shoulders again.

"Now you know us," Isumi translated. "Now you learn real Go."

Hikaru refrained from pointing out that he most certainly already knew real Go considering his current number of wins versus Waya's so far in their online matches. He could stand more face-to-face Go as a substitute for hanging out; even the Internet was starting to pall just a little with such constant heavy use of it.

.

"I'll bet you have to do with the whole professional thing somehow, Fuji," Hikaru said thoughtfully, not giving his whole attention to the game since he was getting slaughtered anyway. "You've gotta be at that level. Right? Sound logical to you?"

The ghost gave him an annoyed look and tapped the board with its fan. Hikaru put down its stone and absently considered what that new threat meant to his teetering group of stones in the bottom left corner.

"S'pose everybody has a ghost in their backyard shed they play against that's impossible to beat?"

He picked the spot that looked like it had the greatest chance of saving him and dropped his stone on it.

"Or you s'pose it'd sound totally crazy if I ever mentioned it, even if there are other yous out there?"

Fuji looked down at his latest stone with a blink that almost looked like surprise, then tapped the fan quickly and decisively. Hikaru's section of territory split like a fence of dry wood.

"Yeah, probably crazy. Heck, maybe you are a ghost and I _am_ crazy. But it's all good, yeah?"

He placed another stone for himself. The ghost smacked its forehead with its fan.

"Ah c'mon, gimme a break."

* * *

A/N: So there we have it--the Heart of Stone and Kawai make cameo appearances, and Hikaru finally discovers the existence of professional Go. He just still has no idea what he's getting himself into. Good thing he has friends like these... :)

Again, thanks so much everyone who left such wonderful reviews--they really encourage me to keep this story going. I'll try to update about once a week, I just can't guarantee that pace once I run out of already-finished chapters. That won't be for a while, though, so hopefully the buffer will mean you never have to wait much longer until the story's finished. The buffer is a very good thing right now, since I just discovered WoW... that game is seriously addictive...


	5. In which Hikaru learns Go etiquette

A/N: Okay, this chapter is a little shorter than usual, but the next will be the longest yet. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with this one or not. Oh, and I forgot to mention last time: special thanks to all the reviewers who told me about their real-life experiences with Go and learning a new language and such, since that's incredibly useful and most of them were anonymous so I can't reply personally. :) All comments and critiques always welcome!

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**5**~ In which Hikaru learns Go etiquette ~

"So, son, you never mentioned how you did in that Go tournament," Hikaru's father said with a sort of stiff casualness as the two of them sat down for dinner.

"Eh? Okay," Hikaru said, distracted. "Uh, Mom, why is the rice on a plate instead of a bowl?"

"I thought I'd try a slightly more Japanese method," his mother explained serenely, over his father's muttered humph. "They're just balls of rice. Think of it as finger food now."

"Is it clean?" Hikaru objected, poking at one of the vaguely round lumps of stickyish grains with the tip of his fork. Most of the time he would have been all for turning things into finger food--that was how he ate waffles, back when they had waffles to eat--but only when it was food he liked to begin with. "What's extra in there to make it clump like that? You didn't put in anything new, did you?"

"Oh for heaven's sake," his father huffed. "It's _rice_, Hikaru, it won't poison you. Be quiet and eat the meal your mother has so graciously prepared."

Hikaru subsided with his own muttered humph, poking the balls of rice once more before extracting his fork too. At least they did actually seem to be just rice smooshed into a roundish shape, not the actual rice balls pictured in manga every now and then--whatever those rice balls actually consisted of. His mother's skill in adapting to new recipes seemed to be about on par with Hikaru's willingness to try new foods that looked suspicious.

"Your homework coming along well, dear?" his mother asked comfortably before they could fall into silence. "Maybe your father can help you with Japanese for a little while."

"That's okay, I'm doing fine," Hikaru assured her, and quickly filled his mouth with the dubious rice, trying to make a convincing 'mmm-mm' expression. At least it didn't taste any worse than normal rice.

.

"This Nase-chan, Shindo," Isumi introduced the strange girl when he, Waya and Hikaru met up at a new cafe for lunch. "She play Go too."

"Oha--" Hikaru started politely, then stopped. Ohayo was a 'good morning.' And formal, too, wasn't it? "Er... konnichiwa." Or was that another good morning? Or a goodbye?

Nase gave him a slightly funny look. Crap. Waya laughed and said something to her in an explaining tone.

"Konnichiwa," she repeated to Hikaru, after a slight pause, and smiled at him. Hikaru smiled back, relieved that she was at least willing to not laugh in his face at his ineptitude like some people. "Shindo-kun?"

"Nah, just Hikaru," he said breezily. "Uh, kun. Hikaru-kun. But Hikaru's fine if you want."

She smiled again, blankly, and repeated, "Hikaru-kun."

"Uh..." Even the word for 'yes' refused to present itself in Hikaru's mind, despite having been drilled in repeatedly. "Yeah."

"Nase-chan teach children Go," Isumi told him, before an awkward pause could develop. "She teach you how hold stone, discuss, all you need."

"Oh. Uh, thanks. Sure. Does it really matter how I hold the stones?"

Isumi translated for the other two. Nase pursed her lips slightly and Waya rolled his eyes and said something lecturingly.

"You learn some, you learn all," Isumi translated. "You know how hold stone, other player think you know Go. Not so surprise when you win."

"So much for creating a deliberate illusion before I wipe them into oblivion, huh?" Hikaru considered only briefly before shrugging again. He'd already agreed. "Fine by me. You wanna do it after we eat?"

Isumi translated, and the four agreed. Hikaru decided he could definitely see Nase teaching kids how to play Go despite (probably) not being much older than him. As soon as their food arrived, she started trying to show him how to effectively wield the chopsticks with his ramen. She was pretty patient, too--he was just proving to be even worse with chopsticks than he was with Japanese.

Afterward the trio took him to a building further down the street that seemed to be some kind of Go place other than a salon, and led him inside to a room with a Go board already sitting in the middle of it--without a table underneath. Hikaru sighed when he saw the cushions instead of chairs that he had been so glad to chuck from his house's kitchen. Japanese people had such weird taste...

While Waya and Isumi just hung out, chatting with each other in low tones or wandering out of the room and eventually back in, Nase helped Hikaru practice holding the stones between his index and middle finger. It was actually an easy position, it was just harder actually holding something that way, especially the control required to pick up and set down a stone using just those two fingers. All it would take to master was trying it over and over until his muscles learned.

Then, through Isumi, she instructed him on sitting in 'seiza'--rigidly straight, like the old geezers in the tournament, with his feet tucked underneath him since he was on a cushion instead of a chair--which, apparently, had no actual purpose but was traditional. Hikaru decided after about fifteen minutes that there was no freaking way he was going to inflict that on himself regularly just because it was somebody else's tradition.

Nase also drilled him on several other Go-related terms, making sure as much as possible that he understood the concepts of each of them: 'komi,' the extra points white got since black had the advantage of going first; 'moku,' the points themselves; 'yose,' the endgame of a match when most of the board was filled with stones; 'atari,' 'tsumego,' 'ko'... even what the board and pots of stones were called, a 'goban' and 'goke.' It made Hikaru's head hurt, but he committed each one to memory.

And finally, still through Isumi, she took him through the tradition of discussing the game after it concluded: how it was an opportunity for both players to critique both sides, to find their mistakes so they would remember them next time; to consider, with their opponent's input, how it might have played out differently if they had chosen different hands. At the end Hikaru would have said he was fully confident in playing Go with other people if only he was capable of doing anything more than just the playing.

"No, that was not _fun_," he snorted at Isumi as they finally left the room, presumably heading toward the lobby. After such a cram session Hikaru had no idea where they were in the building or how they had gotten there when they arrived. But Waya and Isumi both seemed familiar with it--Nase too, considering she went off in another direction after exchanging goodbyes. "Learning is never fun. But informative, yes. I'm going to have to spend hours now doing something mindless and relaxing just to keep my brain from getting sick with indigestion."

Isumi just patted him on the back. Most of that last part had probably gone completely over his head. Waya knuckled Hikaru's head (curse two inches of height) and said something cheerful that Isumi didn't notice or didn't bother to translate.

"Now you only need Japanese," Isumi remarked.

Hikaru groaned. "Need for what? Besides everyday life, any human interaction, and life-saving crises and all that junk?"

Isumi translated to Waya. Both boys just smiled.

.

_Konnichiwa?_ Jamal posted. _What's that supposed to mean?_

_Just hello,_ Hikaru posted. _Well, a version of hello, and one that didn't get me weird looks and snickers, so I'm sticking with it until then. Figures the one that sounds kind of like hello is never the right one. It's ridiculous how many versions of *hey* there are in Japanese!_

_Hello. Hi. Hey. Good morning. Morning. Good afternoon. Afternoon. Good evening. Evening,_ Trey posted. _Yo. Howdy. What's up? Dude. Guys._

_Shut up!_ Hikaru posted, laughing despite himself. _You are *so* annoying!_

_How's it going? Nice to see you. It's been too long. Fancy meeting you here..._  
_  
Dude, if you don't cut it out I am going to come over to your house and throw your computer out the window,_ Jamal posted. _Point made._  
_  
*Nooo*, *Betsy!*_ Trey posted, with an animated wailing face.  
_  
*Betsy*? _Hikaru and Jamal posted almost simultaneously.  
_  
Betsy? What kind of ancient junk have you been reading?_ Jamal posted.  
_  
I am never again acknowledging you as my friend,_ Hikaru posted. _Have a good cry over it with Molly the mouse and Kitty the keyboard and Susy the screen. Just don't forget your tears might kill them._  
_  
You guys are *mee-eaan.*_  
_  
Tough love baby,_ Hikaru and Jamal posted in unison.


	6. In which Hikaru tries to find study Go

**Stepping Stones**

~**6**~ In which Hikaru attempts to find "study Go" ~

Once more, not really expecting to find anything he'd missed, Hikaru looked up from the paper in his hand to the incomprehensible street signs filling the air between the buildings around him. He didn't find anything he'd missed. He was officially lost.

And he still didn't even know exactly what he was trying to meet Waya and Isumi for, since 'study Go' required a little more real-life explanation than Isumi's limited English. Getting there on his own had seemed easy enough at the time--Isumi had told him what station to get off at and scribbled down several signs to find that would apparently lead him there--but he must have gotten off at the wrong station after all. There was no way to check; there was no point in writing down the character that corresponded with the word over the sound system on the train, and Isumi couldn't use English letters to sound it out on paper.

After meditating for a few minutes, confirming that he was most definitely lost, Hikaru settled on what seemed like the most practical option for getting himself back on track. He put on the biggest, most helpless and apologetic smile he could, grabbed a passerby, and pointed at the characters Isumi had listed on the paper. "Know where I find, please?"

Several passersby later, Hikaru was happily setting off down the indicated street, trying to juggle all the written characters in his mind since he had no idea which one he was closest to the sign of. He found a sign that looked like it was for a Go salon, but neither Waya nor Isumi was inside and none of the geezers showed any signs of understanding him, so he left and started asking another stranger again.

When he found himself next standing in front of the same building he had gone in with Waya, Isumi and Nase, he concluded that one of those characters in the line up along the top must be one for Go, and that was all that anyone had paid attention to. Stupid ignorant general public.

But maybe Nase was inside, and she could get in touch with Isumi for him. There wasn't any point going back to the station now that he knew where it was since he still didn't know what the right station to go to was.

There was a receptionist behind a counter on the first floor that Hikaru hadn't noticed the last time he was there when he went in. He formed a large, tentative smile, wondering if she could speak English, but she was talking into a phone and didn't even seem to know he was there. So he just slipped by with some relief and headed upstairs to look for Nase. He only hoped he could recognize her immediately considering he'd only met her the one time and he hadn't spent much of that time looking at her; despite looking almost totally Japanese himself, it was still kind of hard sometimes for him to distinguish one Asian face from another.

He wound up, after getting lost inside the building trying to find the room they'd used before, poking his head into a large long room that was full of kids playing Go against each other. He blinked and kept staring. Not quite what he'd expected when he followed the sound of voices. This many kids were this quiet all together--this many kids played Go? All in his rough age group? Why hadn't Waya and Isumi ever _said_ instead of going out to play old geezers instead?

Unable to resist, Hikaru poked his head a little further through the doorway and studied the game going on closest to him. Both kids looked pretty good, as he got into his analyzing mindset and figured out the likely sequence of moves already played, but black was definitely beating the snot out of white. It looked like white's kid had gotten pushed onto the defensive and wasn't totally considering all his options anymore, which the black kid was naturally playing to his advantage. Hikaru shook his head. The ghost managed that against him all the time; he had gotten expert at always looking for plays to let him hedge, wriggle away or, ideally, turn the tables completely with something totally wild. It was a lot easier to see those possibilities when he wasn't personally involved in the game, though.

The white kid, after a moment of hesitation, dipped his hand into his goke and slowly started to place his stone on a spot that would only dig him into a deeper mess in the long run. Hikaru grimaced.

The white kid paused and looked up at him, startled. Hikaru blinked back, then grinned sheepishly and shrugged. One little non-verbal critique wasn't interfering with the game, was it? Even though the kids could use it?

The white kid said something to the black one, who turned around and stared at him too. White said something else, he and black conversed shortly and rapidly, and then they both turned back to him. Black gestured peremptorily to the nearer empty side of the goban.

Surprised, but unable to infer any other meaning to that gesture, Hikaru slipped fully inside the room and sat down with them. Black spoke again in a decreeing tone--kind of funny considering he looked at least a few years younger than Hikaru--while pointing at Hikaru and then White's hand, which was still holding the stone.

"My advice?" Hikaru asked cheerfully, keeping his voice moderately low since there was an adult at the other end of the room bending over another game and all the kids seemed buried in their matches. "Well, look here, you were going to put your stone there, right?"

White and Black exchanged startled-bunny looks as soon as he started speaking English. This was why he'd thought it would be a good idea to go blond before moving, even though he looked Japanese; maybe people wouldn't be so surprised. But he was pointing liberally to illustrate as much as he could, and the two kids recovered quickly and White nodded.

"This is what's gonna happen if you do that--see, you keep a couple stones from getting lost here, all to the good, but then you get _creamed_ over here just as soon as he puts a stone down in this spot. That's a heck of a lot more stones you just lost, pardon my bluntness. And it just gives him practically half the board in a few turns. Getting it? You probably really do know this already; it's embarrassing what just totally doesn't register in your mind sometimes, I know. You gotta get out of the rut of 'I'm gonna die.' Pretend you're him for a few minutes if it helps."

The bunny boys appeared to completely tune out what he was saying after the first couple minutes, but they paid riveted attention to the hands and consequences he laid out on the board. White looked like it had just registered that an eighteen-wheeler had missed hitting him by a second as Hikaru illustrated; Black never looked surprised. But at least he didn't look upset either. Maybe he got bored playing definitely winnable games too.

"Now, you _can_ still come back from here, if you're smart enough. Try looking over here, he left a couple holes; sure, maybe they don't look important, but stick a stone in here, worm it a little deeper while he's busy mopping up the spots you already lost anyway--"

Getting such a complex sequence through to them required actually placing those stones as he talked, but the bunnies were hardly actually playing anymore anyway and it was easy enough to remember which exact few to take off again when he finished. The couple kids from the next closest goban apparently finished their game and started edging closer, looking curious.

"Then, bang, he's looking at your new territory and wondering what the heck just happened, now he's off-balanced for a few minutes while he's trying to figure it out, now _you_ start pushing--here, or over here; heck, you've basically got a couple free moves while he's paranoid wondering if you're about to pull another rabbit out of the hat and playing it a little safer. That's not gonna last long, of course, then you're back to jab and punch like before, but now you're starting more level."

He sat back, satisfied with his lecture and conclusion, and took in the bunnies' evident states of comprehension. "Got it?"

Black and White stared at the board for a few minutes. White queried, Black answered; White pointed to one of Hikaru's stones, looked up at Hikaru, tentatively moved the stone over one space and looked at Hikaru again.

"Eh? Hm... yeah, that's not so bad, gives you the potential for an opening over here, but only if Black plays it right... he could counter like this, see? Then what do you do?"

Black seemed to like his counter, and nodded and smirked a little at White while the other boy pondered the new development. After a moment White reached down and placed a new stone against Black's intrusion.

"Well, maybe--"

Black promptly grabbed his own new stone and slapped it down to kill White's. Hikaru rolled his eyes, batted at both their hands before they could get overexcited and stop analyzing again, and scolded them when they both looked at him in astonishment. The other bunnies watched with huge, gleaming eyes.

"You morons, you both wanna die." Even playing tutoring the ghost would slice, dice, and bury them neatly side by side in under twenty minutes. Maybe these kids weren't so good at Go after all.

"Sit there, two minutes each, don't do anything but think. Consequences, man, consequences! Now look, you play like that, you can lose like this, and this, and this... and you, you play like that, you die even faster. He could kill you here, over here, over _here_..."

Both bunnies looked chagrined. White mumbled something and Black shifted around on his cushion uncomfortably.

Hikaru was suddenly interrupted from his instruction by the adult who had been at the other end of the room before abruptly looming over their goban and looking both surprised and suspicious. He said something at Hikaru. The bunnies started talking back in a jumble together, the other two adding in. Hikaru was surprised to see that quite a few other kids, while still sitting at their own gobans, seemed to have been paying a lot more attention to his game than their own.

Hikaru tried offering the man a weak smile. "Just helping out a little. Uh--" Finally, a useful and suitable Japanese word popped into his head when it drained of all else. "Gomen. Sorry."

The man said something again, while the bunnies were silent. He looked at Hikaru sternly.

"Really, I mean it. Gomen. Um... Nase?" he asked, reverting to his original purpose, barely remembering to tack the honorific "-chan" at the end. "Nase-chan? She here?"

The man humphed and said something to White that sent the kid scurrying out of the room, hopefully to locate Nase. If she was hopefully around. He knew Waya and Isumi weren't, because they were wherever he was supposed to be right now, and he didn't know anyone else to ask for. He didn't want to trust a bunch of grownups who didn't even understand him to somehow get him to an unknown address or in touch with one of the pathetically few people he could communicate with. So he just repeated "Nase-chan" whenever the man said anything to him, and waited under uncomfortable scrutiny until there was a brief stirring at the door and she finally, blessedly, appeared.

"Konnichiwa, Nase-chan!" Hikaru greeted with the cheerfulness of relief, jumping to his feet. "Sorry, I got lost trying to meet up with Waya and Isumi--they gave me these directions, but I couldn't find the right station--"

Nase looked at the paper he proffered, then laughed a little and said something to the man. He humphed and subsided from his guarding of Hikaru a little, but he still didn't exactly look happy.

"Isumi-kun?" Nase asked Hikaru, indicating the paper.

"Yeah." He nodded eagerly. "Know how to get in touch with him? Tell him sorry I'm late and why I didn't make it and all?"

Nase glanced at a clock on the wall, still smiling, said something short to Hikaru and left with the paper still in her hand. Hikaru presumed she was going to find a phone or something. He hoped it wouldn't take her long.

"So..." He looked around, mostly dismissing the man and noting that pretty much all the kids had given up their games in favor of sitting and watching his sad little drama. "Anybody wanna play or anything?"

No reactions, of course, as none of them understood him. He tried pointing to Black and White's forgotten goban. "Game?"

The man looked at Hikaru sternly again, then summoned the bunnies back and set them up playing again. It didn't start back up very fast as both of them, presumably, started explaining everything Hikaru had shown them to the man. He grunted and settled down beside them, listening, looking like for the long run. Hikaru assumed this to be a subtle hint that he was not to go interfering like that with any more of the other kids, so he just wandered around the room and observed their games, smiling mutely whenever any of them glanced at him. A few of them he wished he could try playing himself, though.

Nase reappeared shortly, looking like she had just been laughing, and gestured Hikaru back to the doorway away from the other kids. She explained something to him that he couldn't understand a word of, but she didn't seem to be making any motions of leading him elsewhere or of whatever being particularly urgent. So Hikaru shrugged, figuring things would work themselves out eventually even if he just went home, pointed to an unoccupied goban in the corner and asked, "Wanna play?"

The overseer looked up from the bunnies and addressed Nase almost distractedly; she answered, smiled at Hikaru, and led him to the goban. Hikaru settled down happily, not in seiza, and started focusing in with his hunt-and-kill survive-the-ghost mode. Game time.

He was wrapped up in the endgame battle, jockeying for the few points--moku--left available and pretty sure he was going to come out the winner overall, when he was suddenly distracted from the world on the board by a commotion at the door, and looked up just as Waya entered, followed immediately by Isumi. "Hey guys," he said vaguely, going back to his next stone. It annoyed him when Nase stood up to greet them rather than keeping her attention on the most important thing too.

"Shindo!" Waya said in a scolding tone, laughing and thumping him on the back. Then he leaned down to look at the game and asked a question.

"I'm white. Winning. You mind?" Hikaru returned, guessing the most likely answer.

"Shindo, how you come here?" Isumi asked, not laughing so openly but still obviously amused at his expense. "Wrong part town--study Go not even close!"

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Hikaru answered, grumpily trying to pull himself out of the game by telling himself he had already won anyway. "Seriously, you are so interrupting right now. Got mixed up with the station, that's all--could've sworn you said fifth stop, with the J-whatsits. Which station was it?"

Isumi translated quickly to Waya and Nase and, realistically, everybody else in the room again, especially the overseer, and then carefully repeated the correct station Hikaru was supposed to have gotten off at. Hikaru didn't think it was very smart city planning to make different stops sound so similar and not have any other way of distinguishing them. Why couldn't they add signs in English, for instance, like there was so much Spanish stuff in America?

"No point go now," Isumi said when Hikaru had repeated the name several times to his satisfaction. "Try next week--you sure no need help?"

"I got it, I got it," Hikaru insisted, mildly annoyed by their doubting even though they had a tiny bit of justification. "I'll make it next time, I swear. Once could've happened to anyone. So have you guys eaten, or should I just head home now, the way the guy over there is giving me the eyeball?"

Isumi glanced back toward the overseer, who was definitely now looking at them pointedly. The man said something before turning away and directing all the kids back to their games, and Waya, Nase and Isumi started clearly getting ready to head out the door. Hikaru cleared off the goban of his white stones, returning them to their pot, so that at least the guy wouldn't have extra reason to be annoyed at him. Nase did the same with her black, and they made a quick exit.

"You be proud," Isumi told Hikaru outside, looking pleased. "Sensei say you not make so much trouble, you be good insei."

Sensei was teacher, even Hikaru knew that, and insei sounded similar, so maybe student? Did that mean he might be able to go back sometime and play some of the other kids?

"I didn't mean to make any trouble," he protested. "I was just showing a couple kids how they could play better."

Isumi translated. Waya and Nase both laughed.

The four stopped in a ramen shop for some quick bowls, and further laughter for the others while Hikaru wrestled with his chopsticks and finally started improvising increasingly ridiculous methods with no more success, including wielding them as a double-pointed spear and one in each hand like drum sticks. He wound up drinking most of it since he refused to admit defeat and get them to ask for a spoon for him. Then they said goodbye, and he went home repeating the proper station name for 'study Go' several more times in his head.

* * *

A/N: Whew! Incredibly long single scene, but somehow it just wouldn't get shorter. I hope nobody minds too much. :) My little brother told me this seems like a filler chapter, and I'm a bit puzzled as to what to do about that, because I don't mean it to be one and things in it do lead to other events--one of which will be the start of the next chapter; I would have put it in here at the end except it's already so long. Oh well?

Let me know what you think, positive or negative, as always, and again, thanks for all the advice, comments, and questions which help me figure out how good a job I'm doing!


	7. In which Hikaru finds study Go

A/N: Well, I'm still feeling a little loopy after having been sick for almost a week, but I've mostly recovered by now, I just haven't been able to write until yesterday. Thank goodness for the buffer chapters. :)

It surprises me how much I've learned about Japanese culture from reviewers since starting this story... which probably just shows how much I should've been researching on my own... I'm often lazy, though. :) I enjoy learning about Japanese culture from reviewers, almost as much I enjoy getting reviews. So keep them coming! As a special treat, first mention of a certain Touya prodigy in this chapter, and in the next the consequences of Hikaru's not learning Japanese start coming home to roost!

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**Stepping Stones**

~**7**~ In which Hikaru succeeds in finding "study Go" ~

Far from being daunted by his failure to navigate the train system correctly, Hikaru had inadvertently discovered a new method of entertainment, since the only way he could interact with other people now was through Go. The next day that he was bored and had several hours of free time, he hopped on the train again, got off at a random station, and started accosting people with the painstakingly copied Go character. Maybe he wouldn't find that many salons, but it would help him get a little more familiar with the city, and now that he knew that other kids actually played Go he felt sufficiently motivated to see if he could run into any of them. Of course that non-salon building was the best place for that so far, but he didn't want to push his luck with the sensei overseer so soon.

He found one salon, poked his head in and failed to spot any kids or relatively young-looking geezers, so he skipped that one and tried again from a different station. By evening he had two new salons committed to memory, and they could at least prove useful in showing Waya and Isumi since they only seemed to know the one. Geezers weren't that great, but it was more fun playing them when his friends were with him.

"You're late," his father complained when he got home. "Where have you been?"

Hikaru thought for a moment. "Wandering around Tokyo going up to complete strangers and begging for handouts." Of information.

His father gaped.

"Did you get anything, dear?" his mother asked mildly.

"Nothing really useful, but I've got hopes."

.

Hikaru paused when his directions led him to a residential neighborhood, wondering if he had somehow gone wrong again despite having found the signs this time, but finally shrugged and kept going. The directions changed from signs to a crude map of a line to follow there, maybe because it was a neighborhood. Maybe the "study Go" was at Waya or Isumi's house.

He completed the last short turn that left him standing in front of one particular house, but paused again before approaching it. They didn't seriously expect him to walk up to a house he'd never seen before and knock, hoping to be in the right place, when he couldn't even explain himself if it wasn't, did they?

Well, fine. If some Japanese total stranger answered the door he'd blame it all on Waya and Isumi and give the person their numbers to let them call and chew them out for it. Serve them right.

Waya answered the door promptly when he knocked. "Konnichiwa dude!" Hikaru said cheerfully, dismissing the punishments he had only a moment ago been devising just in case. "See, told you I'd get here without any more problems! Score one for the American!"

Waya just rolled his eyes as Hikaru stepped in and kicked off his shoes, gesturing absently at the cubby where several other pairs had been put away. Either Waya had one weird collection he'd never mentioned before, or quite a few other guests. Then they went back through the house to a room full of about half a dozen adults, plus Isumi.

"Ohayo," Hikaru said, since formality seemed appropriate, before wondering if it still counted as morning. Nobody smirked at him, anyway.

"Ohayo," Isumi returned. "Congratulations, you here. This Morishita-sensei, who study Go--"

So did the guy study Go or was it his study-Go? Whatever the heck that was? Did that mean this wasn't Waya's house after all? That would explain the lack of a mother anywhere like in his own house... then Hikaru realized he had just missed all the other introductions. Oops. Well, they were all older than him, he could call them all sensei. That would be flattering too, wouldn't it?

"Ohayo," he repeated generally since he couldn't remember a 'nice to meet you' phrase. "Thanks for inviting me. So, what is it we're doing here? Just playing each other or what?"

Isumi paused before translating to the others, even though Hikaru thought he had been perfectly clear and concise. There was a chuckle from Morishita-sensei that seemed aimed at Waya and Isumi, brief discussion, and then Isumi translated Morishita's short statement, "You see now."

Hikaru shrugged and sat down. "Okay."

Hikaru didn't participate much at the beginning, except for playing a short life-and-death problem--tsumego--with one of the nameless senseis when the rest of them got involved in some heated discussion around the main goban, but being there was a definite learning experience. 'Study Go,' he decided, meant Go study group, playing and analyzing games, and it was definitely Morishita's--probably also his house--him and his students and presumably-former students except for Isumi, who seemed to be there either only because Waya was his friend or only because of Hikaru. Hikaru was surprised to realize that Waya evidently considered Morishita his formal specific sensei. So other people had their own versions of ghosts in their backyard.

The younger members of the group seemed to have quite a bit of fun when Waya told them about Hikaru's tournament win (Hikaru guessed, since he caught the word "meijin") and, Isumi told him, Hikaru's experiences in the Go salon they'd taken him to. Isumi had to explain to him that most people didn't adjust so well to face-to-face games after only playing online; Hikaru couldn't imagine why, and said so. That set off another round of laughing chatter. Isumi told him, almost laughing himself, that the guy Kawai had been deliberately trying to offbalance Hikaru by being so outrageous, which new players were almost always susceptible to, and the old geezer after him had been doing his best to scare Hikaru into quivering submission.

Hikaru scoffed. The geezers in the tournament had been even worse, and he wouldn't even have noticed if he hadn't been so bored through most of it. And especially after playing Fuji so often, how could mere mortals' distractions be anything but pathetic? That was all Hikaru's had ever been when he tried them against the ghost.

"You should play online a little more often," he finally said with a shrug. "Some of those people are vicious."

Morishita suggested a game between Waya and Hikaru after being updated on the discussion, which Hikaru had no problem complying with. He was up on Waya 9-4 so far in their matches online. Morishita started either critiquing or coaching Waya a little ways in though, which started gradually but significantly improving his play, making Hikaru laughingly complain about cheating. A couple of the guys started giving him their advice, using Isumi, who added his own. Hikaru took it all in but ignored most of it, and kept making steady progress despite Waya's resistance.

Then Waya's sensei told him something that turned out to be an unexpectedly brilliant tactic. Hikaru fumbled before he realized it, which Waya instantly pressed, so he took a moment to regroup his faculties and start considering as objectively as possible again. He didn't want to be forced onto the defensive. If this game was against the ghost, he'd have to be looking to weasel now--Waya wasn't anywhere near the ghost's level, but if Hikaru played as if he was, it could only be easier, and Waya wasn't used to his highest level of weaseling. He wouldn't be looking for it deep enough. And his sensei didn't know Hikaru's style at all, didn't even know how good he actually was after only seeing one ongoing game, so no problem there...

Hikaru played his hand and flubbed it badly, leaving his endangered cluster undefended. Waya's face lit up as his stones pounced in an unerring pincer. Hikaru's stones withered and died.

Ten hands later, Hikaru placed one more wild stone and his flub suddenly sprouted and chopped Waya's pincer in half. Everyone stared at the board in disbelief, then at him.

Hikaru tried to look innocent. "Gee, that was lucky," he murmured.

Isumi translated, looking slightly suspicious. Actually none of them looked very convinced, especially Morishita. Had he seen that possibility but discounted it because he figured Hikaru wasn't that devious or something?

Waya finally stopped gaping and turned back to the board with a growl, which just made Hikaru smirk. The trick mistake appeared to be as effective psychologically as it was strategically; now all Hikaru had to do was sit and ride the wave of doubt while Waya wondered just how much skill he had been hiding before and distracted himself from his playing. Morishita's influence wasn't quite enough to save him in the end.

"You good. Think tricky," Isumi translated Morishita's pronouncement after the territory had been organized and moku tallied. "You learn only online?"

And in his backyard shed, Hikaru thought. But Isumi's English definitely wasn't up to explaining, or even necessarily understanding, that. He shrugged. "Yeah. There's this one guy I play a lot who's totally unbeatable."

Isumi translated again. Morishita looked at Hikaru intently, then shook his head and patted Hikaru's. "You beat Waya, Waya learn, good for Waya," Isumi translated. "Go good for you. You welcome come here many time."

"Gee, thanks." So the visitor pass turned into a permanent invitation--that must mean he'd impressed them. But while interesting, Hikaru still wondered exactly why any of them bothered forming a study group over Go. Maybe he'd find out after a while if he kept coming.

"Like see you play Touya-san," Isumi continued after a pause to assimiliate Morishita's further comment. "Give him challenge."

"Touya?" Hikaru repeated, to be sure he had heard the name right. "Who's that?"

Everyone laughed or looked at each other, or both. Hikaru was annoyed. What, was he supposed to know who 'Touya' was? Oh, crap, that wasn't one of the guys in the group he'd missed the name of, was it?

Several of the other people started talking while Hikaru was trying to figure out how to repair that gaffe if he'd made it, and how to find out if he had. Waya and Isumi started talking to them in an explaining tone, and everyone paid attention to them. It was annoying to guess that they were talking about him and not have any idea what it was they were saying. He couldn't defend or explain himself, or even contribute a joke.

"We meet you Touya-san," Isumi finally told him, while Waya went on talking and Hikaru noticed that several people were evincing disbelief. It sounded like Waya was repeating something again.

Well, at least Touya wasn't one of the guys in the room.

"Uh, sure. Whatever."

Morishita clapped his hands and the conversation died down, though Hikaru still had no idea what it was about; then shortly everyone was saying goodbyes and otherwise getting ready to go. Hikaru decided to interrogate Isumi on the way to the train station and find out.

"Insei, online," Isumi said dismissively after a slight pause when he asked. "Just Go."

"_Real_ helpful," Hikaru muttered. Waya laughed at him, said something, and knuckled his head before he could duck. Hikaru mimed punching him in the gut. Isumi shook his head tolerantly as the younger two started to wrestle while walking and sighed something that was probable a Japanese version of, "Boys."

.

A situation formed in a game against the ghost that offered a perfect opportunity to try the same trick Hikaru had played against Waya. He did so, trying to act nonchalant instead of holding his breath while he waited for Fuji to react.

The ghost frowned as it regarded the board. It looked up at him suspiciously. He tried even harder to act normal, which probably wasn't completely convincing since he never paid attention to how he normally acted.

The fan reached out, descended... and tapped a spot that killed his deep-set trap before it could even form.

Hikaru sighed as he placed the stone for it. Maybe this was why Go salons were appealing--because you could win in them. Beating the ghost's game was going to take years.


	8. In which Hikaru attends a Go convention

**Stepping Stones**

~**8**~ In which Hikaru attends a Go convention ~

Hikaru's father hung up the phone just as his mother got back from picking up groceries. He stood there for a moment afterward, hand still on the receiver, rather than moving on to something else, acting on the call, or putting it out of his mind.

"Who was it?" his mother asked, taking in her husband's grim expression.

"Hikaru's school," he said after a moment, with great control. "His Japanese teacher, specifically."

His mother grimaced faintly. "How bad is it?"

"Apparently," each word was now being pronounced precisely and individually, "after five months in this country, our son is averaging a D."

His mother sighed, and moved on to put up the groceries. "I'll talk to him."

"Talk is cheap," his father growled. "This has gone beyond patience. He refuses to adapt."

"Well..." It was hard for his mother to argue with that, but she gave it a try. Her husband and son never managed to see things from each other's perspective. "He's happy, though, honey; he's even made friends."

"Friends who will hold his hand for the rest of his life when he needs to get a job? Get into a decent college? Enter the workforce as anything above a janitor?" his father snorted. "Hikaru doesn't need friends right now. He needs language. I'm going to see that he finally learns it."

His mother pursed her lips, but said nothing more.

.

"You not busy today?" Isumi asked over the phone just as Hikaru had been considering calling him.

"No, not really," Hikaru said, muting the song playing on his laptop. "What's up?"

"Waya and I find Go... meeting," Isumi explained after a distinct pause of searching for the word. "You want come?"

"Go meeting?" Surely that wasn't what it sounded like, the dry around-the-table droning that his father muttered about from work. How was it different from the Go study group? Couldn't that be called a Go meeting too? "Yeah, sure, I guess. Where is it?"

It couldn't hurt to check it out; Waya and Isumi weren't the types to go to something really boring voluntarily. And Hikaru had been about to suggest they visit one of the salons he'd discovered anyway since he had nothing else to do, one in particular that had promptly burned into his memory as having both another kid and one capable of at least rudimentary English.

He met up with the other two successfully at the correct location half an hour later, and walked with them into what turned out to resemble a convention center like he had once visited in America with his mom when he was younger. A convention filled to every wall with rows of tabletop gobans for people playing, stalls with Japanese people hawking what looked like everything from Go books to Go posters, and a large projection screen displaying a game in progress for all those interested to see.

"Cool!" Hikaru exclaimed involuntarily, surprised and impressed. He'd never imagined this many people were even interested in Go. And enough to put all this together for no other reason, like comic book conventions and sci fi conventions...?

There was even a line of computers in kiosks where people were playing Go online. Hikaru started weaving through the crowd toward those, interested to see if he could recognize any screen names from NetGo and connect them to faces even though he couldn't communicate with any of those people. Waya and Isumi followed amusedly.

The computers weren't far from some of the stalls, and Hikaru shortly became involved in figuring out what each one was offering, mostly with the other two's help. He found himself wishing that Japanese wasn't even harder to read than it was to speak as they explained what several strategy books displayed focused on, all of them sounding interesting if only they were printed in English versions. There were gobans and sets of stones, apparently of varying material and quality although even the translated specifics didn't mean much to Hikaru; there were videos, T-shirts, food and all kinds of random little trinkets and souvenirs like paper fans and plastic keychains. The books were the only things that lingered in Hikaru's mind. But they were worthless to him as they were.

"We pick simple one," Isumi insisted, helping Waya drag him back toward the book stalls after they noticed he kept glancing that way. "Help you learn read. Learn Go more."

Hikaru gave up protesting after a final token resistance and grumble that they'd better not expect him to pay. Then he just had to try not to look pleased as they debated, presumably over which one was simplest, and wait for his free book. It occurred to him that he might should feel guilty, since it really would be useless to him. But he couldn't resist the appeal of being able to get something without paying for it himself.

"You want Meijin or Oza?" Isumi asked after he and Waya seemed to have narrowed the judging down.

"Huh? Meijin? You don't mean there's something about that tournament I won in there?"

Isumi laughed, as well as Waya when Isumi translated to him. (Waya of course laughed harder.) "Professional Meijin," Isumi then explained patiently. "Professional Oza."

"Oh, yeah, right." Meijin was a title, so Oza probably was too, and the guys who had the titles had written books about what they did. Of course. "Are they about them or about the Go?"

After deciphering the question Isumi assured him, "Go."

"Makes no difference to me then, I've never heard of either one of them. Guess they're probably like celebrities to serious game fans, huh?"

Waya choked when Isumi translated. When Hikaru demanded why he just waved him off, still gasping, and finally straightened with recurring snickers and an unerasable smirk. Sometimes Hikaru despised being the odd one out.

"Oh sure, laugh clown laugh," he said haughtily. "You guys go bug off and do your own thing for once. I'll see you around."

Isumi stopped suppressing his own smile and looked at Hikaru in surprise. Waya questioned him. Isumi had the graciousness not to answer immediately and let Waya feel what it was like to stew in ignorance.

"You sure?" Isumi asked dubiously.

"Totally," Hikaru maintained. "G'wan, see ya. We'll run into each other eventually anyway."

Still looking unconvinced, Isumi told Waya. Waya stopped smirking and looked at Hikaru incredulously. He queried Isumi. Isumi shrugged and answered briefly, then told Hikaru, "Okay."

The other two slowly moved off into the crowd, not before paying for and handing Hikaru his new book. Since he didn't have his everpresent backpack with him for once, Hikaru just held it in one hand as he left the stall and started wandering around, looking for anything else to catch his eye.

He stopped and stared for several minutes in fascination over one game in the corner, between a big animated guy and a sweating older guy. Every stone on the board was white, yet it appeared to be a standard two-player game. Yes--they were both playing the same color. How did that work? Were they actually both keeping straight who placed every stone in their heads while putting more down? How hard was that?

The sweater--and apparently the challenger--gave up and rose, shaking his head. He hurried away with an expression a lot like relief while the big guy laughed and swept the stones off the board. Then he turned to Hikaru and, gesturing to the goban as he addressed him, presumably invited him to try his luck.

"Well... it looks fun," Hikaru admitted, sidling closer but hesitating before actually taking the chair. "I don't have to pay or anything do I? I didn't bring much--" He half-pulled out his yen wallet, and the big guy laughed and waved it away, so Hikaru relaxed and sat down opposite him. "So am I white or... black-white?" he asked, purely business. This would take a whole different level of concentration from just playing the ghost to do well.

The guy pushed one pot of white stones toward him and gestured for him to put one down, so Hikaru settled into the mindset of black. He went first and the other guy had a five-and-a-half komi to theoretically start them even.

Figuring he might as well wing the whole thing since it was going to be such a challenge anyway, Hikaru placed his first stone in the very center of the board, the most strategically insane opening move possible. The big guy laughed heartily and slapped his own stone down without even seeming to pay attention to where he did.

While a challenge, white-only Go turned out not to be as impossible as Hikaru had first thought it might. It just required focus so absolute to keep every stone in mind that his surroundings, his opponent, and everything but the board in front of him faded completely from his attention.

And the guy he was playing was good besides just being more familiar with the style; distinctly better than Hikaru, actually. He was vaguely surprised by that after most of the people he had faced so far in person, estimating that this guy would probably be at the Elite level in the online classifications. Hikaru knew better than to play Elite very often; he wasn't that good yet. Of course, the ghost was Elite minimum, and Hikaru played it at least every other day, so that didn't say much for his common sense anymore...

"Crap," he sighed in disappointment when the game was definitely over, his loss. "That was fun, I just forgot about guarding my shape over here, and then I didn't see soon enough when you--" Then he paused, having automatically started to dissect his play after having been introduced to the concept before remembering that his opponent couldn't understand a word he was saying.

The big guy just said something back, though, which Hikaru couldn't understand a word of either, and they conducted the post-game discussion anyway just as if what they were saying meant something to the other, two one-sided trains of thought verbalized together in turn. Hikaru felt pleased at the end when he rose to go and the big guy shook his hand and ruffled his hair heartily (except about the hair part). Why couldn't other Go fans be that nonchalant about playing with a foreigner? This was proof that language didn't really make a difference if people didn't let it. Pity he'd probably never get to play that guy again.

He stopped in his wandering and watched the main rows of players for a few minutes, trying to judge how good most of them were and if he felt like getting in with them. It might be a mini tournament rather than just a casual open set of tables for anyone who wanted to sit down and play each other.

"Wanna try--" he started to ask, before remembering that Waya and Isumi weren't with him anymore. Well, he could track them down if he wanted; the convention center wasn't that big...

A shout from behind interrupted him, and he turned to see the big white-only guy huffing up waving the book Hikaru had just gotten and forgotten about. He must have left it at the table.

"Oh, thanks," he exclaimed, taking it as the guy reached him. Next time he was bringing his backpack. "Hey, can anybody play there?" He pointed to the main floor and then to himself to make his question clear.

The big guy laughed, as though he had said something funny, and steered him away toward the milling-crowd area with brisk purpose. Hikaru let him since he wasn't heading toward an exit and he was curious about what the guy had in mind.

The guy stopped and looked around when they got off the main pathway, then shouted what sounded like a name, presumably having spotted someone. Somebody else Hikaru could play? Somebody who could take care of setting him up with the other players?

A boy appeared through the crowd apparently in response to the call, then stopped and stared when his gaze landed on Hikaru. Hikaru was already staring back, surprised but hardly displeased. What a coincidence! The same kid he had met in that Go salon, who he'd been planning on playing again!

"Akira-kun!" the big guy boomed again, and the kid shook it off and came over to them, greeting the big guy politely even though he almost barely stopped staring at Hikaru to do so. The big guy slapped Hikaru on the back while rattling something off; the kid--Akira (why did all the names he heard sound girly?)--answered, then, rather than trying to interpret, turned to Hikaru and asked simply, "Play?"

* * *

A/N: Don't kill me! I know, I know, I said the actual consequences of not learning Japanese would start this chapter, but this scene wound up so long I decided to chop it in half and make two chapters of it, so that will have to come after. Hikaru's dad will need a little time to set it up. ;) And please don't kill me for Akira's surprise appearance either; next chapter he'll be a full character, I promise, and it'll explain him and Hikaru meeting. I couldn't resist the cliffhanger. :D

Happy spring break for those of us on it right now! ...As it comes to an end...


	9. In which Hikaru discovers pro Go

A/N: Aaand here we go, the proper introduction of Touya Akira! :) I got up ungodly early yesterday morning and brainstormed the future of this fic rather than doing my math homework, so even though I still don't know the ending you may all rest assured that updates will continue regularly for quite a while minimum. The story might be veering a little off track for a while though--I can't seem to manage the whole learning Japanese thing otherwise.

Reviews put big idiotic smiles on my face and I need the mood boost since I now have to go do my math homework, so please review! And if anyone would like to volunteer to learn calculus for me and take all my tests... sigh...

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**9**~ In which Hikaru discovers professional Go ~

Hikaru grinned widely at the other boy. "You bet."

The big guy laughed and waved them toward the area where his white-only goban was. Hikaru hoped he had a pot of black stones somewhere; he didn't want his second ever game against Akira to have to be one color. He wanted to play his absolute best, without even the distraction of having to adust to a different appearance on the board. On the way to the table it occurred to the boys, as it hadn't last time, to mention to one another that they were Hikaru and Akira. Then they reached it and promptly got down to business.

Playing Akira the first time, when Hikaru had made the happy discovery of a kid his own age in one of the random salons he'd found, had been in a way like getting hit with a shock of cold water. Hikaru had developed the habit of comparing his opponents' skill levels to the ghost's--never had he consciously done so with his own level. With Akira he'd realized that for the first time, because Akira's level was just a notch higher than his own, an astonishingly close level compared to the few other kids Hikaru had played in person. He'd lost by only six points, half a point if the komi had been reversed.

He played the ghost all the time because he wanted to beat its level _someday_; against the ghost that wasn't going to come any sooner. But against Akira--against Akira he thought he just might be able to beat him _this_ day if he tried hard enough, fully applied himself. He wanted to beat Akira's game _now_, and now he had the unexpected opportunity to do so. He wasn't going to waste it.

They waged battle in black and white for at least an hour--although Hikaru never looked up at a clock--before the game finally concluded, and Hikaru sat back with an unwilling but satisfied sigh. This time he had lost by only four points. Now he knew for sure he could possibly beat Akira next time, and had an even firmer resolve of doing so; he'd push and push himself until he did. Maybe his new Go book would even help if he got his dad to help him decipher it.

Akira also paused before starting to clear the board, as though reluctant to erase all the evidence of their excellent match immediately. Hikaru was in no bigger hurry. He felt like showing it off to someone, bragging, even though he had been the loser, except that there was no one to brag to except the winner and that would be just stupid.

"We play again?" Akira asked, paying close and careful attention to each word he pronounced, when they finally put their stones away together. "You come to salon again?"

"Definitely," Hikaru promised--maybe bring Waya and Isumi too, like he'd first intended. Although they definitely wouldn't be able to beat Akira. "Hai. When are you there?"

Akira considered before offering, "Weekend."

Hikaru nodded. "Okay. Hai. Next weekend, I'll be there. Saturday?"

"Hai," Akira agreed. Then he glanced around and asked, "You come to see match?"

"Uh, not any one in particular," Hikau said, shrugging. "Just to look around. See everything. Is there a special match? Important match?"

Akira seemed to hesitate a little, then noticed Hikaru's again-forgotten book and pointed to it. "You know of Meijin?"

"That who wrote it?" he asked absently, glancing down at it. "I know it's a title, that's all. Really good player, right?"

Akira smiled slightly. "Yes. Good player. Meijin play here today."

"Really? Wow." Hikaru blinked. "Yeah, let's go see then. You know where?"

Akira nodded, moving away from the table. Hikaru barely remembered to grab his book before following. "Hai. Screen show. See in next room better."

The next room, which Hikaru hadn't even known was there, proved to be where the meijin and his opponent were actually playing. Spectators were apparently free to watch but couldn't get right up to the goban and were all being very quiet. Hikaru wondered why Akira thought they could see better from the edge of the room rather than on the main floor with the big screen and commentator; then Akira started working his way closer through the people watching and Hikaru felt someone grab his arm and was pulled just outside back into the lobby area.

"Shindo!" Isumi exclaimed, Waya right beside him. "Still good? See Meijin?"

"Yeah, yeah, seeing meijin," Hikaru agreed, shrugging his arm out of Waya's grasp. "'Course I'm fine. Oh, hey--"

"Hikaru?" Akira called, reappearing at the doorway and stopping there when he saw Hikaru with a couple other boys.

"Touya!" Waya exclaimed, sounding like he would be strangling if he wasn't so shocked.

"I thought it was Akira," Hikaru said, confused, turning to him.

"Touya Akira-san," Isumi told him distractedly. "You know Touya-san, Shindo?"

"Yeah, we just met up again," Hikaru explained.

At the same time Akira said, "We play at salon."

"Oh," Isumi said, a little helplessly. Then he suddenly seemed to find something funny as he said, "Amateur Meijin meet Meijin son--who win?"

"Amateur Meijin?" Akira repeated.

"Meijin's son?" Hikaru repeated.

"I win," Akira added.

"Barely," Hikaru clarified. "Wait 'til next time."

Isumi looked like he was definitely suppressing amusement. Waya was slowly turning red in the background. Isumi took pity on him and started explaining what everyone else was saying.

"You Amateur Meijin?" Akira asked, turning to Hikaru, sounding moderately impressed but not totally surprised like most geezers.

"Apparently. By accident really," Hikaru admitted, shrugging. "You're the guy in there meijin's son? The pro one? Whoa, that must be weird. No wonder you're good though. Must play a lot, huh?"

"Hai. My father teach me," Akira nodded. "Who teach you?"

"Er..." Nobody, the people he'd played at the very beginning, the people he lost against, a ghost. "...Online games. Online sensei. I'm from America; Go's not as big there." A memory suddenly struck him and he turned to Isumi and asked without thinking, "Hey, Akira's that Touya you guys said I should challenge at the study group, huh?"

Isumi looked up, startled, blinked and swallowed. "Ano... yes," he admitted, glancing at Akira and then away from him. "Sensei say be good match."

"Morishita-sama?" Akira asked, apparently unconscious of any rudeness or any such thing. "He have good judgment. We have good game."

Waya muttered something that Isumi didn't translate. Isumi jabbed him with his elbow and nodded, smiling. "You lose?" he double-checked, turning to Hikaru.

"_Barely_," Hikaru insisted. "Only by four points. Four moku."

"Four moku is close," Akira agreed. "No handicap."

Handicap? Handicaps playing Go? How could you handicap a board game?

"Very good," Isumi said, sounding impressed. "Touya-san very good," he added to Hikaru.

"Duh," Hikaru agreed. Akira was the best player he'd met so far in his age range--though, granted, so far the only others he'd played were Waya, Isumi and Nase. But at least a few of his online opponents were other kids, and they didn't compare either.

"Are you insei?" Akira asked him, with a slight gesture that might have been toward Waya and Isumi.

"Huh? Uh... no, not really. I guess. You'd be your dad's insei, huh?"

Akira gave him a weird look. Isumi quickly explained something to him in Japanese, which Hikaru generously chose to assume was only for the convenience of fluency and brevity instead of letting it bother him. Waya joined in. Akira stared at them.

Then he swiveled around and stared at Hikaru as he demanded, "You _understand_ insei?"

"Uh..." Hikaru glanced around at their faces. "...Apparently not?"

"Insei try to become professional Go player," Akira explained very slowly and deliberately. "I try to become professional Go player. You try too, yes?"

"You guys want to go pro? In _Go_?" Hikaru repeated incredulously. "But--what--as a _career_?"

"Why not become professional when you are so good?" Akira demanded.

"People don't _do_ that!" Hikaru protested, unable to form a more logical argument. Go was like chess, wasn't it--sure, there were technically a few people who did it for a living, but not _real_ ones. Real people just played as a hobby. And they _all three_ wanted to get in there--wanted to play Go for a living? Were they serious? Could they even get any money from it?

"Wait--you think _I_ could go pro? Seriously?" he asked, dumbfounded. One more revelation on top of everything else. It just made the rest seem even more unreal. "C'mon, get real. It's a game. Nobody plays games for a living, except like maybe poker. But--"

"Go like poker," Isumi suggested.

"But--" Hikaru repeated feebly.

"Come." Akira grabbed his arm and started marching off toward the main room. He led the three to one of the unoccupied computers, quit the Go website, and brought up what looked like a search engine in Japanese. He clicked on a page that looked like currency exchange rates and studied it for a second while he spoke.

"My father is Meijin," he said with calm persistence. "He make over one-hundred thousand American dollar every year."

Hikaru gaped at him.

"Meijin is one of seven title," Akira went on inexorably. "Meijin, Kisei, Honinbo, Gosei, Jyudan, Tengen, Oza. Every one make over fifty thousand American dollar. Every year new match for every title. Japanese Go Association have over one-hundred professional Go player. Every year there is test, three new professional Go player. They teach, play, study--Go is their job. China, Korea have many more player."

Hikaru was at an utter loss. A _hundred thousand _dollars. A _hundred plus_ pro players, in _one_ country. All for Go.

And they said he could be a pro too...

"I..." he finally tried. His voice cracked. He swallowed, and lost whatever he had to say, not that he'd had anything. He seemed to be speechless. Well, thoughtless. "It..."

Finally he cleared his throat again and squeaked, "You sure? Really?"

Waya, Isumi and Akira all nodded seriously at him.

"Waya and I insei," Isumi reiterated, slightly apologetically. "You better. Touya-san above insei. You almost same. You can be professional."

"But..."

"Why not?" Akira demanded, practically boring into him with his stare. "I will become professional, play better player, become better. Will you fall behind? Will we not play again?"

"You won't get better than me!" Hikaru automatically yelped indignantly. "Just you watch! I'll--stop that! Stop pushing! Look, this is all just weird, okay? What's the rush? Why can't I just think about this and get used to it?"

"Do," Akira said, nodding decisively. "But soon. I will not wait."

Hikaru bristled, but refrained from escalating that argument even though it was begging for it. He _would_ beat Akira, period. Being a pro or not had nothing to do with that.

"What about that amateur Meijin thing?" he asked carefully a moment later. "How big a deal is that, really?"

Isumi looked thoughtful for a moment. "For amateur, as high as can," he offered.

Hikaru blew out his breath in a silent sigh. So. He was already at the top level of recognition in Japan without going pro, and his friends, the ones he thought he was just hanging out with sharing a common interest, were all aiming to go higher. Couldn't he still play them like now even if they did? What was all this seriousness?

But he could go pro too. He could make playing a game a career, supposedly. He could get money for it. He could get _paid_ for playing a game, _really_...? Paid enough to live on?

"But we're just kids," he pointed out. "We're too young to be getting jobs, so what does it matter now?"

"No age limit on professional Go," Akira said flatly. "Youngest Japanese was eight."  
_  
Eight_. Hikaru gawked. A pro player, earning money, at _eight_?

"Okay," he said finally, shaking his head. "I'm gonna go home now. This is too much all at once. I'm just--I'll see you guys around, okay? And you, you're still gonna be at the salon on Saturday, right? You're not ducking out of our match because of this?"

"I will be there," Akira said, dark eyes snapping. "I will win."

"We'll just see about that," Hikaru threatened. "See ya, Waya, see ya, Isumi--"

"Shindo!" Isumi called just as he started to make his exit. "Where book?"

Hikaru stopped and looked down blankly at his empty hands. Crap. Then he sighed and turned back resignedly. "Okay, fine, I'm going home _after_ I find that stupid thing _again_. Don't suppose any of you'd like to help...?"


	10. In which Hikaru's father takes action

A/N: Here we go, the first chapter into the double digits, featuring Hikaru's American friends once again (finally) and, for the first time... *drum roll* a scene from someone besides Hikaru's point of view! (Yes, very shocking, very dramatic, thank you, you may applaud.) From here on out, Sai's role finally starts getting bigger, too--in fact, next chapter he actually manages to get Hikaru to call him Sai. :D

As always let me know what you think please, everybody, about Akira in particular--it's been so long in this fic since I've stepped out of Hikaru's head that I'm not sure how well I was able to step into someone else's. Thank you all so much for so many reviews last chapter! Oh, and for AnonXMan, who asked about Akira and Hikaru's game... *scratches head* well, it doesn't really matter who was black and who was white, so take your pick? :) Onward!

EDIT: Sorry for the false alarm people, just had to fix a small mistake I made at the end of the chapter--apparently Japanese numbers *are* the same as American ones. Yeah, shows how much I know. :P

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**10**~ In which Hikaru's father drops a bombshell ~

"Oi, Fuji," Hikaru called determinedly when he finally finished hooking up the line of extension cables leading through the backyard and lugged his laptop into the dusty shed. "C'mere! I told some people you were my sensei online, so you gotta start playing just in case I ever need to point to some games. Here Fuji! Go! You wanna try playing some new opponents?"

The ghost hovered interestedly at his shoulder as Hikaru settled his laptop on the goban and logged onto the Internet. It asked several questions that didn't sound remotely understanding while Hikaru brought up NetGo.

"Alright, let's pick your username and password... crap, Fuji's taken. Let's add some numbers then... um, go is like five in Japanese, right? So Fuji-five... Fuji-five-five-five... oh c'mon morons; so much for being clever. All right, never mind. Jaro. _Ha_! Jaro you are!"

The ghost failed to appreciate that small triumph properly, but Hikaru didn't care. He typed in the same password he used for his account, registered the new user, and headed to the Go boards. He picked an Experienced player for Fuji's/Jaro's first match. No reason to start at the top and make waves from a sudden appearance; they could build up there over a few weeks or so.

Fuji squealed with excitement when the nineteen-by-nineteen lines came up, with virtual black and white stones ready to be placed. Its fan danced in front of the screen in enthusiasm until Hikaru batted at it and laughed, "Yeah, yeah, settle down before you hyperventilate. This is like Go in a magic box, okay? Look, you're playing somebody all the way over in Korea. Exotic Go. Now c'mon, you get to go first. You're black. Get to it!"

The fan vibrated gently as the ghost hummed its indecision, then whisked at one of the intersections of lines in the bottom right corner. Hikaru clicked and placed the stone. The ghost squealed again, and again when the first white stone appeared. Then it narrowed in and started playing Go. White didn't stand a chance.

Fuji pouted and begged several hours and four games later when Hikaru stretched, glanced outside, and logged off. The ghost was insatiable now that it had been presented with the magic limitless Go box. Hikaru almost regretted the introduction.

"Tomorrow, okay?" he promised, already focusing on what activity he felt like after sitting on the floor for so long clicking a mouse. Kicking around his soccer ball, maybe; it'd been a while since he'd really done that. He could use the practice. "I'll let you play again tomorrow, but not forever. We don't want to make a big deal of this. Really you should be grateful you've gotten to play anybody else at all; you live in a shed, in case you haven't noticed."

The ghost pouted again but seemed to believe his promise even if it couldn't understand the words. Hikaru thought briefly about bringing a basic English phrase book in sometime, but really could a ghost actually learn something, and did he want to risk it getting any more pestering than it already was?

.

_What?_ Jamal posted. _*What*?_  
_  
You're kidding,_ Trey posted. And without a gaping face emoticon.  
_  
It's not that big a deal,_ Hikaru typed defensively. _Turns out there's this pretty big Go world over here, could even make money in it, so why not think about it? 'S'not like I'm committed to anything yet._

_But it *would* be a commitment, Hikaru,_ Ami posted. _Are you really sure you want that? It's just a game. A hobby. You really want to play a hobby for the rest of your life?_

_Hey, playing Go doesn't mean I can't do anything else,_ Hikaru insisted. _Besides, Go's pretty much all I do anymore anyway. There's nothing else to do._

_That blows, man,_ Jamal posted.  
_  
I *like* Go,_ Hikaru posted, irritated despite the sympathy meant. _Seriously, what's the big deal? It's just something I'm thinking about. I don't even know what it's really about yet. What's with you guys?_

_What's with *you*, Ru? _Trey posted back immediately. _You never would've actually thought about this before. You said you weren't getting into Japanese culture at all over there._

_I'm not, which is why Go is the only thing I have to do,_ Hikaru fired back. _And I kinda like the idea of playing it all day. Why not get some money for it while I'm at it? Turns out I'm *really good*, guys. I can go pro._

_Shut up and calm down, everyone, _Ami posted. _Okay, Ru. We're not trying to criticize, we're just surprised. It's weird to think about. It doesn't seem like you. There's not any time limit on you deciding this, is there?_

_No,_ Hikaru posted, refraining from adding anything else.  
_  
Then it's no big deal, _Ami posted. _We can get used to it, and you can look into it logically, and we can all get back to each other. We're still your friends. We want to support you._  
_  
Gee, thanks,_ Hikaru typed, but hesitated before hitting Enter to post it. Instead he backspaced, paused again, and then only typed, _Yeah._

.

"So, how's your Japanese?" his father asked over dinner, after having been unusually quiet since he got home.

Hikaru shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. "Okay, oto-san."

"At least you're being more honest," his father muttered, utterly ignoring his use of what Hikaru knew was the proper term for father. Then he announced, out of the blue, "We've been beyond patient with you giving you time to adapt, Hikaru. You're not trying hard enough. Starting next week you'll be going to a proper Japanese school from now on."

Hikaru's fork dropped with a clatter. "_What_?" he protested, aghast. "You can't mean--not a Japanese school like where they all speak Japanese? Dad! _I can't understand Japanese__!_"

"This will give you no other choice but to learn," his father said, immovable. "It's the only option left, Hikaru. You can't stay helpless in your new country."

"Mom," Hikaru turned and begged to her. "Tell me he's joking. My grades will be sunk, my homework will be pointless, I won't _learn_ anything--I'll _die_! Please, Mom!"

"I'm sorry, honey, I know it'll be hard," his mother said sympathetically but without remorse, proving her ability to utterly turn off all human empathy when needed. "But you are young enough to adapt. And you will learn Japanese this way, much faster."

Hikaru just kept staring at her, unable to believe that his only ally had turned against him so completely. _She_ wasn't the one switching schools to an environment where she'd be an alien. Easy for her to say 'sorry you can do it.'

"Next week?" he finally whispered, after working his mouth for several moments without producing any sound.

His father nodded firmly. "I've already finalized the transfer."  
_  
Next week._ He'd be dead. He rose from the table and drifted away to his room, no longer hearing or seeing anything beyond his scrambled thoughts. Of all the things he'd thought could be the worst his parents would ever do to him... this was going to be a living, waking, unending nightmare. If only the world would end before Monday...

.

Akira was running a bit late Saturday when he got to his father's Go salon, expecting Hikaru would probably be there waiting on him like last week. He had an apology formed and ready as he entered, but it died away as he came to a stop inside, puzzled, and took in the other boy slumped over the goban from his chair, head turned to one side, muttering faintly.

"Hikaru?" he asked carefully in the other boy's tongue, approaching. "Are you ready to play?"

His answer was a muffled groan. "Tell me something, Akira, how is it you talk English better every time I hear you?"

Akira shrugged a little, uncertain how to answer. "We learn it in school. Since I meet you, I study it more."

"I _hate_ you."

Akira blinked. He knew quite a few of the inseis didn't like him, but he had never had that said directly to him. And he had thought he and Hikaru were getting along quite well--Hikaru was the one who had started the first-name, no-honorific basis. Even if he was not really familiar with Japanese culture.

"I am sorry to hear that," he finally said. "Do you want to still play?"

Another groan, and what sounded like a complaint about his head. Akira refrained from pointing out that he still couldn't understand if Hikaru didn't speak slowly and clearly enough.

"Hikaru?" he asked again after another moment passed. Catching something indistinct, he leaned closer, and was surprised to hear that Hikaru seemed to be muttering a string of random everyday words in Japanese in completely nonsensical order.

Growing concerned, he stepped back and went into the salon's private office behind the reception counter, where he picked up the phone and dialed the Go Institute's number, the only useful one he could recall off the top of his head.

"Good morning. This is Touya Akira," he told the receptionist on the other end when she answered. "Are there any insei in today named Waya-san or Isumi-san? I'd like to speak with one of them."

The receptionist promised to go find out, and Akira waited through a brief pause until there was a click of the phone on the other end being picked up again. A slightly suspicious voice asked, "Touya?"

"Waya-san?" Akira guessed, and received a grunt as an answer. "This is about H--Shindo-san. He's at my father's salon for our game, but I think he might be sick or something."

"Shindo, sick?" The other boy suddenly sounded more alert. "He's never even had the sniffles as long as I've known him. What's wrong with him?"

"I'm not sure. He's not moving or speaking much, and he doesn't want to play." He hesitated a little before continuing, but then did so anyway. "I thought you might have a better idea what to do since you know him better."

"If Shindo totally isn't interested in Go, better take him to the hospital," Waya predicted. "But he ought to be fine. He's probably just in some mood--gets a little sulky every now and then. Just badger him until he gives in and starts talking again."

A faint sound came from the other end of the line and Waya paused distractedly, then spoke into the phone again, "Look, I've gotta get back before I forfeit. Don't worry about Shindo. But if he _is_ sick, get him to a hospital and let me know _right then_, or else. Oh, and tell him he's in big trouble if he skips sensei's study group again without saying anything when he was supposed to be there!"

The other end clicked and turned into a dial tone, and Akira slowly replaced the phone in its cradle, wondering vaguely how Hikaru made such friends that they could be so threatening for him when he couldn't even talk directly with them. But then Akira knew that for whatever reason, possibly just because he was so good in Go, Waya seemed to particularly dislike him. Making friends was never a skill that Akira had learned.

"Okay, Hikaru," he said calmly in English, returning to the main room, determined not to lose this one through incorrect handling--which was, apparently, his usual handling: polite. "What is wrong?"

Hikaru just mumbled. Akira sat down beside him, ignoring the lack of welcome, and asked again, "What did happen?"

Hikaru moaned. "I _hate_ Japanese."

Akira blinked. That sounded much like how Hikaru had said he hated Akira, except more genuine. Good. Then Hikaru didn't actually hate him, just hated his being Japanese.

...That seemed a little racist.

"Why?"

"Because it's _impossible_!"

Akira wondered if he should point out that Hikaru seemed to have picked up at least a dozen new words already judging from his muttering. But since when had he started muttering random Japanese words in the first place? Hikaru was the most un-Japanese boy Akira had ever met.

"What did happen?" he repeated patiently.

All of a sudden Hikaru jerked up from his unmoving slump and finally answered, a rapid outpouring of frustration and wild gesticulations being let out which Akira could barely get the gist of. School, Japanese, horrible... Hikaru was attending a _Japanese school_? He couldn't even communicate with Japanese!

"I _hate_ my father," he finally ended with vicious fervency, staring with narrowed glassy eyes into nothing. "_Hate_ him. I'm dying, and I want to kill someone, and I never want to go back _ever_--"

Akira sat back a little and took quick and careful estimation of the other boy's evident volatile state. He'd seen Hikaru get worked up when they were playing each other, but never like this.

"Okay," he said slowly, deciding on what was needed most. "You want to play or me help you with Japanese? You have homework to do?"

"Do I!" Hikaru vented with not quite so large an explosion. Then he calmed slightly and frowned at Akira. "Whadda you mean you'll help? Seriously? What happened to only caring about Go?"

"I do not care only about Go," Akira said, though he felt a little stung by the accusation. So he'd pressed a bit hard when he found out the first other child almost his equal he'd played didn't even know about the pro world; that had been a knee-jerk reaction. He couldn't believe his potential rival could be only a casual competitor. "I do my homework."

"Oh I bet you get perfect grades," Hikaru muttered, sounding resentful. Akira tried not to feel hurt. He was used to being shut out from "normal" kids, of which Hikaru definitely was one, even if he wasn't Japanese.

"Fine," Hikaru said suddenly, leaning over and heaving a stack of books and papers out of his backpack. "You _really_ wanna help, I'll take it. This is everything from this week--I can't understand _any_ of it."

Akira swallowed, looking at it, but took a deep breath and nodded. He wasn't going to back out of a promise, and Hikaru definitely needed it. "Okay. What subject will we do first?"

"I don't care. I'm totally illiterate and barely capable of speech, so they're all the same to me," Hikaru growled. "Can't even do _math_ since I can't even read the stupid directions!"

"Then we do math first," Akira said patiently, sorting through his schoolbooks--none in English; ouch--for the correct one. "Directions are not hard. Just need practice. Look at numbers for clue..."  
"I hate you," Hikaru repeated ungratefully--but he focused on what Akira was trying to teach him with the intensity of a drowning man, and tried everything Akira set him with the single-mindedness of clutching a lifeline.

A lifeline which didn't appear to do him much good despite his effort. Akira privately regretted having made such a big deal about Go again the last time they'd met; apparently the poor boy had much bigger more immediate problems than deciding whether to go pro or not. He resolved to stop pushing Hikaru for a little while, just until he had something under his feet to support him. His own wants would have to wait.


	11. In which Hikaru's ghost attempts to help

A/N: For those of you who've enjoyed the scenes with Hikaru's American friends, here's one more appearance...and sorry. They just couldn't stay funny forever. :( That said, bet you wanna read on now, huh?

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**11**~ In which Hikaru's ghost attempts to give him help ~

_Ru? You here?_ Jamal posted. _Wow, what, twice in one month?_ _You realize how long you've been barely even showing up? Hang on, I'm gonna call the others and tell them to get online--geez, you better have a good reason for dumping us like this. We said sorry last time, didn't we?  
_  
Hikaru stared at the screen for a moment, taking in the message, and then reached out his hands and started typing with unconscious focus, _Do me a favor, Jay, and make another call for me first.  
_  
A brief pause, and a new line appeared:  
_  
What? What's up?_

_You remember my aunt Kate from all those visits she'd make over the holidays--see if she'd take me in for a few years if I moved back to the U.S.?_

_*What?* Ru, you're coming home? Seriously?_

_Maybe,_ he typed, grimly, knowing it was almost certainly futile and hating that. _I *want* to. It's been months and I'm still not Japanese, and I'm sick of trying just because Dad pushes so hard._

_Oh,_ Jamal posted, and Hikaru could almost hear the disappointed resignment even though it had been so long since he'd last actually heard his friend. _What'd he do now?_

_Put me in a Japanese school._

_What--_ And then on a new line, _he's *nuts*! Can you even talk it at all yet?_

_Like two words. Sometimes. Despite how long I'm spending trying to cram it all in now every day. I'm going out of my mind._

_Dude, I am so sorry for you. You could stay at my place if you can get back,_ Jamal posted. _It'd be great, I've got a new first-person shooter that totally rocks, and T's trying to start a dog-walking business he's already dying at, and Ami's been wearing lipstick to school and keeps getting it smeared all over her food when she tries to eat, it's hilarious. It'd be so great to have you back in the middle of everything!_

Hikaru sat back and stared at the screen, feeling irrationally dumbfounded, and just a little hurt and lost. Since when had Jamal been allowed to get any sniper games--since when had Ami ever had the slightest interest in makeup? Since when had Jamal referred to her as Ami instead of Ames?  
_  
Ru?_ Jamal posted. _You still there?_

Since when had he gotten quietly left behind by the last place he had any faint feeling of belonging to?  
_  
Hikaru?_

Hikaru stared a moment longer, then blindly closed the window and disconnected from the Internet. He didn't want to, couldn't, deal with this at the moment on top of everything else. He wouldn't. It was too much to take in.

.

Hikaru's second week of school was even worse than his first. He only made it through the tortuous, endless hours surrounded with incomprehensible unfamiliarity by shutting everything out as completely as possible, from the teachers' lectures to the other students' constant undertoned giggling and staring at the lone odd American out. There was no place in the school Hikaru felt even remotely comfortable or like he could fit in, and he was stuck being there for what felt like eternity even though he couldn't understand or learn a thing, and even when he was finally free each day he could never forget that he would have to go back the next morning.

He would have liked to refuse to learn Japanese in retaliation, to maintain at least some control over his own life, but he _needed_ to learn it now since that was the only thing that could make his new situation any better. And he found, when he actually really tried to start learning for the first time, that he had no idea how to do it.

Hikaru was, like his mother and father believed, brilliant in his ability to pick up some things when he devoted his attention to them, but the things he learned best were those that used logical deduction--Go was naturally strategic, and math, even algebra, was a natural process flowing from a few operational rules.

Languages were different. He couldn't visualize any base to start from, like the Go board or an already-set-up equation, so the only way he knew to try was to just try to memorize everything all at once. At school he buried himself in Japanese second language books that didn't help him learn or shut out everything around him, and after school he buried himself in them again doggedly without expectation or success.

It did occur to him to apply to his friends for help after his last Go session was aborted in favor of tutoring, but he didn't bother doing so. The tutoring had proved that Hikaru didn't find it any easier trying to learn Japanese from those who had been born into it and grown up using it all their lives, and Akira was the one with the best grip on English. He stopped seeing them nearly as much anyway, even online--Hikaru focused single-mindedly on Japanese, since nothing less had a chance, and that immediately excluded Go. He didn't have enough concentration or energy to split them between two such intensive subjects, so Go had to be temporarily shoved into the background, no matter how much he resented the necessity.

As far as Waya, Isumi and Akira knew Hikaru stopped playing entirely, and except for one technical exception, they were right. Hikaru stopped playing cold himself when he transferred, but one afternoon he still grimly hauled his laptop out to the shed and connected to NetGo to let Fuji play again. One of the ubiquitous second language books was stuffed into his pocket and he pulled it out and stared at each page while clicking, not even following the game.

He hadn't thought of the ghost for the ghost's sake, or because he had promised to let it keep playing. He remembered those things, but he kept the promise mostly just for the sake of doing one tiny thing _not_ related to Japanese, one momentary secret rebellion, even if he wasn't doing it himself. Maybe Jaro's record had become pointless, but it _would_ be there anyway. It assumed an importance far beyond its actual one when Hikaru was forced to shove all his other interests aside indefinitely.

The ghost was first thrilled when presented with the magic Go box again, but after Hikaru set it up and turned to his book he vaguely noticed that the ghost's directions for placing were coming in between longer and longer pauses. He finally looked up irritably when he could no longer concentrate for waiting, to find Fuji staring at him with a puzzled and distinctly concerned look.

"What?" Hikaru rasped, and then clamped his mouth shut. Every day going to school wore his endurance down further and turned into a burning behind his eyes, and made it harder to control his voice, but he was not going to cry over such a stupid worthless excuse of a language. He wasn't a kid.

The ghost kept looking at him, then reached out its fan and tapped at the book Hikaru was holding. Hikaru flattened the pages open to let the ghost see since that was easier than telling it to bug off.

Fuji looked at it for a moment, brow furrowing into an expression like surprise, and then looked up at Hikaru again. Hikaru raised the book and buried himself behind it; he moved the mouse almost blindly when the fan flicked at the screen in his peripheral vision. Then he put the book down with a frown, because the fan was pointing off the virtual board entirely at the _Resign_ button.

"Are you insane, you're beating the guy!" Hikaru exclaimed with only a glance at the board. The opponent was only another Experienced player; of course the ghost was winning.

The fan didn't move.

"No!" Hikaru said furiously, batting at the unyielding object and of course passing right through it. Vaguely he knew he was overreacting, but he was long beyond caring about things normally. The pressure that had been building in him needed a vent. "Don't _tell_ me you're just quitting all of a sudden on some whim! You could beat this guy in your _sleep_! What kind of ungrateful jerk are you; nobody good enough anymore? Not worth your time? Well not after all the trouble I went to just for your _sorry_ behind--"

Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes despite himself, and he swiped at them, hating the entire world with passion beyond reason. He clamped his eyes shut and tried to block everything out to help control the tears; the ghost silently enfolded him, not physically touching although some unremarked part of his brain sensed the other presence. He cracked one eye open to check and saw, through a blurry film, one flowing white sleeve risng and falling in steady rhythm as the ghost stroked Hikaru's hair, and kept the eye open a slit just for the faint comfort of the knowledge of that intangible soothing.

So what if he cried a little. It was just a ghost to see anyway.

Hikaru didn't bawl, didn't sob, but he did keep crying for quite a while, slow and feeling awful and refusing to care anymore, until he finally seemed to have cried all his tears out and instead of feeling anything just felt sort of drained and tired. It was a better feeling than the growing buried frustration that had been roiling in his stomach for what seemed like forever.

When he glanced at the computer screen again, he saw that Jaro had resigned by default from being inactive too long, but he didn't feel anything about it, and the ghost didn't seem bothered either. Instead it bent to look at the book he'd brought, a straight English-to-Japanese dictionary, and nudged at it with an expression to Hikaru that requested he help it look inside.

Hikaru picked it up and opened it to a random page for the ghost to read, which it did intently for a moment; then it looked up at Hikaru again and spoke a very slow and short question, pointing at the Japanese character column. Hikaru still couldn't identify any of its words, but guessed its meaning easily enough.

"Yeah," he muttered, feeling the sullen resentment start to grow again. "Gotta get it. My oto-san put me in a Japanese school."

The ghost sat down, precisely like it always did, beside him, then flicked its fan open and covered the page with it. Hikaru blinked at it, startled.  
_  
"Hikaru,"_ it said, looking at him instead of pointing since its fan was already occupied.

"Yeah...?" he said, slightly wary.

The ghost removed the fan briefly to gesture at him while saying, _"Hikaru,"_ again.

"Hikaru," Hikaru repeated.  
_  
"Hikaru desu,"_ the ghost said in a correcting tone.

"Oh, right, _I am_," Hikaru muttered to himself. "Hikaru I am; I am Hikaru. Hikaru desu."

The ghost looked pleased. It flipped its fan around and pointed at itself, then back to him; Hikaru didn't even glance at the book. _"Sai-san desu."_

"Sai-san desu... um... I am Sai-san," Hikaru said slowly, then frowned. Even Japanese people didn't use the honorifics referring to themselves. But they did use the same words to mean different things... "_You are_ Sai? Sai-san desu?"

The ghost beamed and pointed its fan at him.

"Hikaru desu," Hikaru said again.

The fan turned to itself again.

"Sai-san desu."

Then he paused, puzzled. "But your name is Fuji. Fuji-san desu."

The ghost smacked its head with the fan, looking exasperated. _"Sai desu,"_ it insisted.

"Fine, fine, Sai--Sai-san desu. You know you're still Jaro online though, too late to change that." If the ghost was going to go around making up new names for itself now, at least it still had the one Hikaru had first thought of in one place. He still liked Jaro better than Fuji anyway.

The ghost still looked annoyed, then suddenly straightened a little and pointed its fan at him again. _"Sai-san desu ka."_

Ka. Ka meant... question. "Oh--are you Sai-san? Sai-san desu ka? Or Fuji-san desu ka?"  
_  
"Sai desu,"_ the ghost grumbled, closing its fan.

"Okay, fine, as long as you don't go changing your mind again. Hai. Sai-san desu."

The ghost looked pleased. _"Ii."_

"What--isn't that _no_? Gah--_iee_?" he tried, unable to remember the exact pronunciation.  
_  
"Iie,"_ the ghost said, and made a stern and disapproving frown. _"Ii."_ It smiled widely and bobbed its head back and forth, nodding overenthusiastically.

"Iie. No," Hikaru repeated. "Ii. Um... another yes? Good?" He grabbed the phrasebook and started hunting through it to check. Its first half was English to Japanese, organized alphabetically; the second was Japanese to English, also alphabetically, using English letters alongside Japanese characters.

"Good, fine, nice," he read. "Ha. Ii."

The ghost beamed. _"Hikaru-kun desu ka,"_ it then went back to the beginning.

Question, you... "Hai. Hikaru desu," Hikaru confirmed.  
_  
"Ii!"_

"Fuji-san desu ka," Hikaru then tested.

The ghost glared at him. _"Iie! Sai desu!"_

Hikaru laughed. He surprised himself by doing so; the only time he'd come close to laughing since his transfer was a brief temptation to collapse in hysterics when he found out his new schedule included an English class. That would not have been a happy laugh.

"Sai-san desu," he agreed tolerantly, refraining from rolling his eyes.

The ghost gestured at the phrasebook, and Hikaru obediently held it up and turned pages as the ghost indicated. Sure, mastering four words for fifteen minutes wasn't going to make the slightest difference in his overall incompetence, but at least for those fifteen minutes he finally felt like he was achieving something.

Four words a day and he might be capable of basic communication by the time he was fifty... how would Fuji--Sai--react if he worked out the phrase 'I want to burn my school to the ground'? Just be proud of his willingness to find the words and order he needed without help?

The ghost made a pleased sound as it presumably found whatever character it was looking for and turned its attention to him, ready to start again presumably with something new. Hikaru shelved the thought to look for later in his room. Maybe he could make it his mantra if it was easy enough to pronounce.


	12. In which Hikaru's friends make a choice

**Stepping Stones**

~**12**~ In which Hikaru's friends face a difficult decision ~

By the time the next Sunday was half over Hikaru had come to the conclusion that he _could not_ bear the prospect of going to school again the following morning. He'd spend the day in the park or wandering the city instead if he had to. But that could get him in trouble, especially if his father found out, so he spent some time marshalling his arguments, logic, and a rather thin veneer of calm before finding his mother and making sure his father was nowhere nearby.

"Mom," he began soberly, shifting from one foot to the other despite his attempt to remain mature and reasonable. His mother had to listen to him. He didn't have anyone else to go to, despite her betrayal in letting him switch schools without a fight.

She looked up from the book she was reading and immediately set it aside, which made him feel a very little bit better inside. He hated being on the out with her; it was the first time that had ever happened.

"Yes, Ru?"

Rather than standing there fidgeting, he moved into the room and sat down beside her abruptly. "I don't want to go back to school tomorrow."

No, that was _not_ how he was supposed to start--he had to sound mature! Logical! Where had that stupid speech gone now that he was supposed to actually be saying it?

"I know, honey," his mother sighed, putting an arm around him, which he tolerated since she was his mother. Even though it made him lean in to her shoulder a little. "Hasn't it gotten even a little better?"  
_  
Now_ was the time to lay out his arguments, or she'd just say 'sorry you can do it' again and not understand. "It makes no difference whether I'm there or not," he said flatly after a quick deep breath to ensure his voice was steady. "If I didn't go, I wouldn't learn anything--and if I did go, I wouldn't understand anything. And I wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway because everyone stares at me and talks about me and I can't understand what they're saying."

His voice wobbled a little at the end despite himself, and he cursed it mentally. Shouldn't have added the last bit at all; it just sounded like kiddy whining. But she _had_ to understand--he couldn't _take_ this!

"That was one of the things I tried to point out to your father, that your grades would drop for quite a while if he did that," his mother said thoughtfully over his head, which was resting on her shoulder. "But you know how he is when he fixes on a decision first; all criticism is opposition to be overcome."

He knew that all right. Hikaru had always thought vaguely that his father and mother had probably gotten married because she was the only one who could manage him despite that obstinacy; he didn't want to hear that even she couldn't do it all the time. He felt like one more little sliver of his innocent childhood had just been stripped away, never to be preserved.

"I've been thinking it over, and I've come up with an alternative that I think would be better than going back, or even the American school," he resumed after another moment and deep steadying breath. "We could hire a tutor for me."

It was the ghost that had given him the idea, with the actual small success he had enjoyed with it, but he couldn't try to tell his parents he'd found himself a tutor in his backyard shed, and it was still only minimal success he'd had with it since they still couldn't really talk to each other.

His mother's response came in a mild, interested hum.

"I can't think of any way I could learn better," Hikaru pressed, trying to increase his advantage. "I need one-on-one instruction for anything to stick, but that's still not worth much unless the other person can understand English just as well as I do. I need to be able to ask questions and know they understand and that their answer is saying exactly what they mean to. And I could actually keep learning school subjects at the same time, with an English speaker--I could learn everything all together." He held his breath a little as he made his final plea. "Please, Mom. I'm willing to apply myself this time, I really am--" I'm already _killing_ myself, he almost added, but didn't, "--I just need help, and I'm asking for it. Please let me try."

His mother was silent for a moment longer this time, which was agonizing because Hikaru knew she was genuinely considering it but couldn't be sure which way she would decide.

"Do you know, Hikaru," she finally remarked, squeezing his shoulder while he suffered, "that this is the first time you've offered any suggestion on your schooling at all since we moved?"

"Is it?" he said vaguely, wishing she would just tell him if he was consigned back to waking nightmare junior high or not. But it might sound desperate to beg.

"Mm. It's the first time I've seen you give any thought to it, actually. And it sounds reasonable."

Hikaru dared to let out a very tiny breath of relief.

"If your father were to agree to trying a tutor, how would we go about it then?"

Hikaru had assumed his parents would take care of that again, just sort of do whatever they did and present him with one when they finished who would hopefully be able to teach him effectively, but he rapidly revised that assumption in light of his mother's comment on taking responsibility of his own. This was probably a test.

"Uh, go back to the American school and see if any of the oldest students are interested in that kind of thing," he offered, improvising aloud as ideas came together in his head. "Like maybe working on teaching degrees or with little brothers or sisters they help out with or--" the ideas were unfortunately running out quickly, leaving him grasping at straws, "--or even just somebody who used to babysit and could use some extra money or something..."

His mother laughed. "That's not a bad idea, sweetheart; that does seem like the logical place to start looking for someone fluently bilingual."

Hikaru held his breath for a second. She ruffled his hair.

"All right, I'll speak to your father about it. No promises."

His breath let out in a whoosh. "Of course!" he agreed fervently, trying not to look and sound as thrilled as if it were a done deal even though he felt like it.

"It may take a bit to work him around. In the meantime, I expect you to be studying on your own to the extent of your ability."

"I swear!" he promised even more fervently, and added daringly, "And school tomorrow--?"

Because he still wasn't going. But he didn't want to have to mess up his chances of salvation by getting caught skipping and getting in trouble.

His mother looked at him with a vague frown long enough to make him wriggle inside with anxiety. Then she sighed, gave him a knowing half-smile, and said only, "I'll ask no questions and you tell no lies."

Hikaru threw his arms around her in a spontaneous hug, too exuberant with relief to contain himself despite the fact that he didn't _hug_. "I love you Mom!" _This_ was how their relationship was supposed to be--so similar there was no question they were close family members. Practically twins from different generations sometimes.

"No promises," she repeated tolerantly, smiling back. But they both knew better by then. When she really wanted something, Hikaru's mother got it, not by persuading but by making her opinion the other person's opinion and then agreeing with them. She called it a southern belle trait. Hikaru still held out small hopes of someday inheriting it or being able to learn it anyway, but as long as she was on his side, it didn't really matter.

.

When Akira heard the door to the Go salon open and a young man's voice immediately following it, he felt a single thrill of hope that Hikaru had shown up again before logic reasserted itself and pointed out that it was definitely not Hikaru's voice, or language. He looked up to find out whose it was and blinked in surprise to see Hikaru's insei friends, Waya and Isumi, standing at the front counter with differing degrees of evident discomfort. Waya spotted Akira and elbowed Isumi, who left off speaking to the receptionist and followed his shorter friend as he started forging a path toward Akira.

Akira wondered what on earth they were doing here. It had to be about Hikaru. Had he gone to them instead after Akira's less than successful attempt at tutoring and they, rather than Hikaru, had decided to belatedly let him know for some reason? Had Hikaru actually gotten sick and Waya now intended to make good his threat to punish Akira, with his friend's help?

Ridiculous. Surely. Why did the other boy always have to seem so... large? Loud? And unfriendly only around Akira? Akira was used to feeling shut out from other people his age, but why did this boy have to constantly remind him of that with his mere presence?

"Touya," Waya said shortly as he reached Akira's table.

Akira nodded politely, letting none of his slight apprehension or wondering show. "Waya-san."

"Touya-san," Isumi murmured behind the shorter one.

"Have you seen Shindo?" Waya demanded, disregarding all niceties.

Akira blinked again, trying to not annoy the other boy but also to avoid being rude. "Not since before last week." He hesitated a bare second, calculating in his head to decide whether or not to speak again as he did with Go hands, and added, "I have no way to contact him if he doesn't come here." He almost shrugged his shoulders a little to further indicate his helplessness, but didn't feel comfortable enough to do so. Akira only moved easily when he forgot himself, like when he was involved in Go.

"We've tried calling, but the only times he's answered he's said he's too busy and hung up without letting us say anything," Isumi offered with a slight grimace. "He hasn't shown up online..."

"What's going _on_ with him?" Waya growled, with such irritation that Akira might have felt nervous if it had been directed at him rather than demanded in general of the air.

Akira calculated likeliest causes and effects, and came to the conclusion that Hikaru's friends had come to his father's salon to ask him about Hikaru's situation since they didn't know and thought he was next closest to the ex-American (which gave him a very small private warm feeling somewhere in his stomach, even if he doubted that were true).

"I suppose he's too preoccupied with transferring schools and studying the language right now to have time to play," he offered, voicing the opinion he had formed and kept repeating to himself when Hikaru seemed to drop all contact after leaving the salon last time.

Waya started, and Isumi blinked.

"Transferring schools? What do you mean transferring schools? He hasn't moved, has he?" Waya demanded.

"He told me his father transferred him to a Japanese school," Akira murmured, refusing to let himself shrink back from the larger boy's focus but explaining as quickly as he decorously could. "He was very upset because he couldn't understand anything and had so much to learn so fast. We didn't even wind up playing one game while he was here."

Waya looked slightly explosive, Akira thought, though thankfully again not directly at Akira, and he relaxed the tiniest fraction while thinking he was glad he wasn't Hikaru's father or possibly even Hikaru right now. Really, it was terribly thoughtless not to have let any of his friends know what was going on, but Akira couldn't feel _too_ upset at him when he remembered the miserable stress Hikaru had been struggling under the last time he had seen him.

"Well... no wonder he doesn't have time for Go anymore, then," Isumi finally said softly, reluctantly. "He must be very busy..."

"Busy? How dare that little twerp quit right now just for something as stupid as Japanese lessons?" Waya huffed, looking like he was taking it as a personal affront. "He could make time around it if he wanted! The pro exam is coming up, we were going to get him past the prelims--"

"Waya," Isumi said with a very fixed, speaking look at the shorter boy that shut him up momentarily. "How much Japanese has Shindo learned in all this time we've spent with him? Even just picked up from hearing it in everyday speech and repeated?"

He used one word in front of me once, Akira thought. And one random string he might not even have known the meanings of.

"Basically none," Waya admitted, glowering.

"Imagine if your family moved to an English country and put you in a school where no one else spoke Japanese. How easily would you handle it?"

"He ought to keep his priorities straight though!" Waya protested. "The prelims are starting next week; if he'd keep practicing--we should go over to his house and drag him out and tie him down in front of a Go board!"

"It's his choice," Akira surprised himself by breaking in, albeit quietly. "Hikaru--san--was very upset about what was happening; I think..." it wasn't likely prudent to continue, but he had already started and he felt like he had to defend Hikaru when Hikaru wasn't there to defend himself, as much as it hurt even himself to say, "...I think he needs support from his friends, not pressure of any other kind." Even if it was just urging not to break off from the Go world.

Waya and Isumi both looked at him.

"Easy to say when we couldn't even give him support if we tried, the way he's cutting himself off from us," Waya growled.

"Maybe we should just let him take a break if that's what he wants," Isumi murmured, looking oddly pained at his own words.

"But the prelims--" Waya started to complain.

"Yes, the pro exam," Isumi cut him off, with unexpected intensity. "The pro exam is coming up. And we wanted Shindo to be taking it with us, but he's clearly not. That doesn't mean it's not still coming up."

Waya opened his mouth and then closed it again, without a sound. Akira felt a bit like an intruder in his own father's salon, being there, even though he understood their dilemma.

Waya and Isumi were insei--on a track specifically training to become Go professionals, for which passing the months-long pro exam was the final test, and there was an age limit on insei that must be pressing down especially hard on Isumi right now as he approached it, even though he could still take the exam as an outsider like Akira would and they had apparently intended to have Hikaru do. The exam was only held once a year; every chance needed to be taken in it. Trying to help Hikaru meant devoting too much attention to something other than Go to stand any chance of earning the required place in the top three to pass.

It seemed awful, but it was their futures they were weighing against one friend's momentary need. As insei, if they didn't make it to Go pros, they probably didn't have any other option left open for their futures--probably neither were still attending school. Akira was still in school, and did well in his classes, but he had been learning Go from his father since he was two and couldn't even fathom how anyone could ever do anything else for the rest of their lives. Just like with the insei, Go was all-consuming to him.

Besides, it was hardly as if Hikaru were hospitalized and possibly taking his last breath while they were off playing endless rounds of games. There was no reason they couldn't continue being friends with him after they all got past their current priorities... although Akira's own friendship (if he called it that) with Hikaru was based solely on Go, and he suspected it might be the same with Waya and Isumi considering they were insei... and passing the pro exam, especially with Hikaru falling out of practice, would essentially mean leaving him behind Go-wise unless and until he caught back up to them. If he could.

Waya shifted uncomfortably and said nothing. Isumi stared over their heads at the wall opposite, looking troubled. Akira sat quietly in his chair and stared at his hands, turning all these thoughts and reasons and conclusions around in his head, finding no flaws, yet understanding the others' apparent guilt. They really had no choice; he doubted even Hikaru would blame them for temporarily letting him struggle on his own. And he himself, of course... he had been planning on taking it this year too...

But that didn't mean, logic pointed out, that his choice was bounded by theirs. He was only thirteen, like Hikaru, even though he, his father, and his father's pro friends were all confident he could pass the exam already... not choosing to take it only meant postponing his own career... for nothing, really, considering Hikaru seemed to have forgotten him; just for the possibility of not being further above Hikaru if he got back into Go and decided to try to go pro...

When he had already told Hikaru that he _wouldn't_ wait for him--when he had already challenged Hikaru to come after him into the pros--when Hikaru had evidently chosen not to at least temporarily in favor of focusing on Japanese...

But he would come back to Go eventually, right? Once he had fairly grasped the new language, and could communicate with people other than Akira, Waya and Isumi, and do whatever else he wanted besides playing Go all day... wouldn't he still want to? Despite how much he seemed the opposite type? He couldn't _not_, could he--the only potential rival his own age Akira had ever met...?

And that was all Akira had on which to base his own decision of whether to postpone his own career for another year (or more?) or not.

* * *

A/N: Yes, I know, you all hate me now. It's not really a cliffhanger, though, because it's going to be a longer wait than just until next chapter to find out what Akira decides... wait, that doesn't make it any better, does it? :D Please don't kill me--it's not as much fun writing these more serious chapters, but they have to happen before Hikaru can move on to all the plot twists and new characters I'm planning for him. So please bear with me for a while. :)

This is really just me being lazy, but does anyone happen to know when exactly the pro exam takes place in the series? Was it like through May-April? (How sad is it that I don't even have any idea of what time of year it is in my own story... :P)


	13. In which Hikaru turns down a new path

A/N: Okay, I've never actually studied any foreign languages myself, so I'd just like to go ahead and say that I have no real idea if this method would actually be a good one. It makes sense to me, but I don't have any personal experience.

I apologize in advance that there's so little Go in this chapter, but this is the only one like that, and if you think about it there's something fairly significant with the Go scene that is in here. Also, schoolwork is really starting to weigh me down (last month of the semester, and I took a condensed English course with papers due *every* *week* :P), so I might have to start slowing down how often I post chapters for a while. I'll get the next one up next Thursday like usual since I feel bad about the lack of Go, but after that I might go to every other week or something. Pray for summer! :)

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**13**~ In which Hikaru's life diverts down a new path ~

Hikaru was a bundle of nerves the morning his tutor was supposed to arrive for the first time, unable to sit still or concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. It _had_ to go well with this tutor; it was his last chance to avoid drowning in Japanese school. If he turned out to be wrong thinking it would be easiest to learn one-on-one with an English native... but he was _not_ thinking about what could go wrong. He wasn't thinking about it at all; he was concentrating on Missile Command... and how fast he could lose, apparently...

When the doorbell rang, he was out of his seat and bursting down the hall before his mother had even finished opening the door and greeting the visitor, momentarily robbing himself of breath and speech in the process. "Ohayo. Sensei. Desu--Hikaru desu," he scrambled, knowing that was not making a very good impression even though he had rehearsed it about a million times in his head.

"Ohayo, Hikaru-kun. Dani desu," the stranger answered with a cheerful smile. She was tall, with a dishwater-blonde ponytail and no accent (or, rather, a vaguely Northern American accent), which reassured Hikaru that she was as non-Japanese as he was, and looked to be about twenty. "Or Danielle if you prefer the English version, given that Japanese doesn't use l's. Let's not bother with the sensei stuff, unless you'd prefer it?"

"I'd probably never remember to use it anyway," Hikaru admitted, relaxing further.

She grinned at him. "Good. I've tutored a couple other kids before, and the ones who liked it seemed a bit too much Americans-into-Japanese-'culture,' you know?"

"Geeks?" Hikaru suggested, having occasionally teasingly been called one himself.

"Fanboys, more I'd say." Then she glanced at Hikaru's mother, with a nod-of-her-head greeting as opposed to a partial bow, and added with a smile, "Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Shindo. I'm Danielle Friedman, the tutor you hired for Hikaru?"

"Nice to meet you in person," Hikaru's mother agreed, with an amused smile of her own. "Would you like anything to drink; any refreshments?"

"Thanks, but I'm fine. You want to go ahead and get started?" she asked Hikaru, who only nodded, nerves increasing again at the prospect. "Well, it's usually easiest to study in your room, unless you've got some other place?"

He shook his head.

"Then why don't you show me there. And don't worry, I'm not planning to throw you headfirst into the books as soon as we get there," she added with a knowing grin.

"What? Why not?" Hikaru asked as he led her down the hall, surprised back into speech. "What else is there?"

"Well--first, I don't always make very immediate points. Can you work with that?"

"Sure," he said vaguely.

"Good. Well, I've had quite a few teachers through all the schools I've attended, back home and here, and the difference I noticed as I got older between which ones were 'good' and which ones weren't was how well I understood them. Not how well they taught, how well I understood how they were teaching. It's kind of an individual thing, the matchup between student and teacher, you see?"

Hikaru nodded, slowly, not actually sure but following. He sat down in his computer chair when they reached his room and she sat without invitation on his bed since there really weren't any other places to sit.

"So when I tutor kids, I try to teach them so that _they_ understand it. And it's easier to do that if I have an idea of how they learn easiest, what analogies they relate to, stuff like that. Which means your first lesson is probably going to be just as much talking as it will be reading or studying anything." She grinned at him. Hikaru grinned back, feeling like he was being handed a reprieve--temporary, but still, who was he to argue with the teacher?

"So, what kind of stuff do you like to do when you're not beating your head over the cultural warp?"

"Surfing the web. Soccer, kinda. Used to be movies," Hikaru automatically listed, his mind bringing up his old interests before the Big Move. "Playing Go."

"That's a game? What kind?"

Hikaru blinked. It had been so long since he'd interacted with anyone who didn't spend half their time on Go that he'd forgotten most people weren't even aware of it. "Uh, strategy, I guess. Kinda like... checkers, connect four, tic-tac-toe. Except more like on a chess level."

"One player or two?"

"Two." Geez, he really was explaining badly. "Basically you play on this big grid, nineteen by nineteen lines, putting down black and white stones, and try to get more territory than your opponent. No other rules on how to move or anything."

She nodded a little, looking considering. "Huh. Sounds interesting. Ever do any reading besides for schoolwork?"

He hesitated, thinking of his favorite manga and her comment of 'fanboys.' "Er, comics."

He'd picked up some X-Men occasionally, a few Green Lantern (or was it Green Arrow?) and Fantastic Four and all that; they were comics. Trey had a collection so big he couldn't even count them all back in America. There were just so many alternate timelines and different styles and crossovers into different universes that they'd never seemed worth the bother of trying to really get into.

"Ever tried Japanese comics now that you're here, manga?" she asked. "I think there are plenty of English translations online."

Hikaru noticed absently that she said the Japanese word with Japanese pronunciation, mahn-ga instead of mane-ga like he'd always thought before moving. "Yeah, there are," he agreed without thinking, then stopped and looked at her with surprise and suspicion. "You'd know?"

She grinned at him. "Who, me, after arbitrarily labelling other people geeks? How could I be so hypocritical?"

"I bet you read shoujo," Hikaru muttered, watching her reaction, mostly as a test. He didn't actually often talk back, however little, to a teacher to their face.

"And I bet you read typical macho badly-drawn shounen. There, now we're both outed, and I take back my judgmental comment. I just can't think of tutors and martial arts dojo heads on the same level, deserving the same title, you know? Probably because of my own fangirl manga experience when I was younger. What series are your favorites?"

"The popular ones, I guess." Even though he didn't read anything just because it was popular. Apparently what he liked, a lot of other people liked too. "Black Cat, One Piece, Dragonball--well, mostly just watch that one..." He gave her a sideways glance. "The manga I like are seriously important to you teaching me how to speak Japanese?"

"You might be surprised," she said comfortably, crossing her legs on his bed. "The easiest way to learn anything as big as a new language is to take it as easy as possible, look at it in an everyday setting, and then use it as much as possible in an everyday setting. The language they teach in school is never the language they speak on the street, you know that, right?"

Hikaru thought back to his old Spanish classes. Of all the phrases he remembered, he couldn't imagine ever using a single one if talking to a Spanish-speaking person. "The sky is blue," "the book from the library"...

"Yeah, guess so."

"Tell me, how have you been trying to learn it so far?"

Hikaru shifted a little in his seat. "I got this decent translation dictionary, so I've basically just been reading through it over and over."

"Ah. Okay, first rule under my reign, and it's absolute--no memorizing. Not unless I specifically tell you. We can experiment some, of course, but that's the _worst_ way for me and I have the feeling it might be for you too if it hasn't been working that well before now."

Hikaru just nodded.

"Here's what I want you to try instead: keep the book with you all the time--can it fit in a pocket? That would be best--and whenever you want to use a Japanese word, look it up. If you want to say a sentence, look up each and every word, and do that each and every time. Eventually--might take a little while, might surprise you how fast--the words you look up most will start coming to mind before you've even flipped the pages. And without you tearing your hair out trying to memorize them."

Hikaru nodded again, slowly. It sounded tedious, extremely so, but he was willing to try anything if it had a chance of working better. It wasn't like he had a reputation with anyone to lose going around with his nose in a book all the time anyway.

"Good. Then that takes care of the general studying. I'll give you some specifics, too, like homework assignments. You know you're welcome to suggest your own ideas with anything or tell me if you don't like mine; I generally operate on a seat-of-the-pants basis for this kind of stuff until we both figure out what works best."

"Okay. Everything sounds good so far," Hikaru assured her.

"Glad you think so. And now back to those hobbies of yours and how they're related to the homework I'll make up for you. What I think you should try first is just getting used to Japanese-American things in your everyday life--not just one, not just the other. I assume you go on youTube sometimes?"

"'Course."

"Then look up some of the Dragonball episodes you've already seen that aren't dubbed, best would be the ones that have English subtitles and romaji--Japanese using English letters--if there are any, and try to pay attention to the sounds the characters are making connected to the English letters and Japanese syllables. Don't study it, just let it soak in. One of the hardest things is learning to distinguish words in all that stream of babble and jabber, yeah?"

Hikaru nodded slowly, wondering if he could possibly convince his father that his new tutor really had told him to watch anime as homework. It didn't seem likely.

"Then get your translation dictionary back out and see how much of an episode you can transcribe by hearing without using the subtitles. Go through it however many times you need, one sound at a time if you need. Play around with the lines if you want once you've got 'em, figure out how to make the characters say different things, and write your new stuff down in English and romaji. Don't worry about spelling, just write it however it sounds. I'll check your accuracy, we'll see how it works for you and if something else would be better, and then we'll go from there. Sound good?"

Hikaru nodded again, surprised into momentary speechlessness. It sounded... possible. It even sounded reasonably convincing if his father poked his nose in and asked testy questions about how much he had learned after twenty minutes under his new tutor's guidance. "I can do that."

"Good." She smiled at him. "Most important thing at the beginning is to relax, Hikaru. It's hardest to learn if you feel like you've _got_ to. I'll take responsibility for your progress with your parents as long as you're doing your best with whatever I come up with, okay?"

"Deal," Hikaru said immediately. "I was kinda planning on doing that anyway."

"Ha. Now, I'm also being paid to keep you relatively caught up on the work you're missing by not being in school right now, so from here on I'm going to turn part donkey and do all the reading and writing translation necessary for you to have an idea what's in these books and turn in anything that's remotely comprehensible."

"Okay," Hikaru agreed. Getting a tutor hadn't been a subconscious idea for slacking off work; it had been a last-ditch redirection of his effort into a new channel. If it worked, he'd throw his heart and soul into it until he had the stupid stuff mastered.

"Fair warning, all that work is going to motivate me to shove as much as possible off back onto you. Ready to get started?"

"Okay," Hikaru agreed again, pulling out his schoolbooks, and settled into the utterly focused mindset he used for Go much more easily than he had since before transferring.

.

"Play," Hikaru told the ghost--Sai--in Japanese, then repeated it to himself in English, and again in Japanese. Maybe he wasn't supposed to memorize, but he wasn't trying anymore, he was just trying to... emphasize. "Okay, you're black." He flipped through the book to look up the word for 'black.'

The ghost looked at him dubiously, but followed his direction and pointed at a cross section on the virtual board. Hikaru pointed and clicked with his nose buried the book, looking up whatever random words occurred to him as practice, muttering to himself over questionable pronunciations.

The ghost played slowly at first, glancing at him and occasionally frowning slightly, but gradually picked up and seemed to get properly involved. While it did, Hikaru started running out of random words occurring to him, and then on a sudden whim grinned (he'd actually tried whistling--badly--as he hauled his laptop out to the shed that morning and set it up) and laid the book aside to lean closer to the screen. While the ghost queried in a confused tone, he located the Chat box and clicked the cursor in it.

"Practice," he told Sai, still grinning. "You just keep playing."

The rest of the game saw both of them fully involved, Hikaru in looking up words and figuring out what order to put them in, the ghost in choosing hands and laughing at Hikaru's choices of what to type in the Chat box. 'Hi how are you' was boring; he picked riddles instead, drawing from a site he'd found surfing that had a long list of them. The ghost proved useful in finding the (presumably) correct characters for the words he said, too, since he couldn't be sure that the Japanese opponent would understand English letters no matter what they sounded out. Sai didn't seem to know romaji anyway.


	14. In which much time passes in small steps

A/N: I promise, people, this will be the most detailed Hikaru's language lessons get since they don't really advance the plot; next chapter is working back into Go. As you'll see at the end. *evil grin*

One more reminder: I'm going to switch to posting a new chapter every other week for a while now while I get through the end of this semester and try to write a few chapters ahead so I have a buffer again if I decide to go back and change anything (and for when I feel lazy and don't write ;D).

Also, from here on out there's going to be a bigger mix of English and Japanese being spoken, since Hikaru will start understanding a little, so any suggestions on how to keep which language is which as clear and readable as possible would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure if I want to put Japanese in italics or anything, but I don't want it to get confusing. I think one person's mentioned it's a little confusing already. :P At the least, once I do start posting those chapters, I'd be hugely appreciative if my more educated reviewers would let me know if Hikaru's beginner's grasp is unrealistic or if I make any stupid mistakes on anything due to my lack of knowledge and experience. :) Enjoy!

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**14**~ In which much time passes in small steps ~

"Now talking won't sound like you're used to since pronunciation is flat, no accents on any syllables like in English."

"Yeah, I know," Hikaru said. He had picked up a very few things about the native tongue in the American school.

His tutor grinned. "Sorry if I'm rehashing the basics; I just don't know what you know until I know. You'll just have to bear with me for a while."

"Sure," Hikaru agreed.

.

"Okay." Hikaru cleared his throat, held up the already dog-eared and increasingly worn book in front of him as if it were a script, and laboriously announced, "Boku dai-su-ki--uh, -sen--chotto mat-te... kaimono." Proudly, he looked up, only to see the ghost squeezing its lips and eyelids together as if trying to hold in something difficult, probably out of politeness.

"All right, what part was wrong, hotshot?" he demanded, scowling. "'I really don't like a little'--" He checked the book again, having briefly forgotten the meaning of the last word he chose, "--'shopping'! I don't like shopping! What, you got something for shopping? Been wishing you could go out and find a nice new dress to go with that hat or something?"

The ghost just nodded and smiled, definitely not comprehending, looking more than ever like it was swallowing both comments and chuckles.

.

"Much improved," Danielle decreed, studying his latest example of a Yu Yu Hakusho transcript. "You're pretty fast with this, kiddo. You want more of the same or a new homework assignment?"

"What kinda new?" Hikaru asked.

"How good are you with numbers?"

"Er... in Japanese?"

She raised one eyebrow and put one hand on her hip.

"Sorta okay," he hedged. "They're in my book."

"All righty then. Go over them a few times--not memorizing, just 'oh yeah that's that' familiarity if you can--and then go out and order something to eat from one of the shops around here. You should be able to handle it, it's such a short and preset interaction--you can even use the book-a-word approach if you want to. And you can be adventurous and try something new, too."

Hikaru suppressed the urge to make a face at that suggestion, since there had been a couple weird things he'd tried before when out with Waya and Isumi that had actually tasted okay. "How'll you check that homework?" he asked just out of curiosity.

She grinned. "You tell me what you had, I'll count your change and tell you how badly you got cheated."

"And then take a percentage as a fee for extra services, I bet."

"Hey, us poor college students gotta earn money somehow."

.

Book in pocket, where it was ready to be pulled out but would hopefully remain safely out of sight, Hikaru stepped up to the counter, marshalled his confidence, and ordered, "Takisoba." As an afterthought, to be polite, he added the Japanese word for 'please,' one of the few he was totally sure of and had actually had memorized for quite a while: "Onegaishimasu."

The woman who was supposed to take his order, rather than doing so, looked at him for a moment before saying something way too fast and likely too complicated for him to understand. Then she just kept looking at him.

"Takisoba?" Hikaru repeated, trying not to sound helpless or whiny.

"Sosu _ya_kisoba?" the Japanese woman returned.

"Oh." Hikaru deflated slightly. Crap. "Uh, yeah, sure, thanks--hai."

.

"So, what next?" Hikaru asked, Danielle unusually having not started speaking immediately after checking his ongoing transcribing efforts.

"Couple questions for ya." She drummed her fingers on the laid-aside sheets of smudged notebook paper. "You seriously barely knew any Japanese before your parents hired me even though you were trying to learn it?"

"Yeah," Hikaru said, slightly puzzled.

"Okay then, second question: do you _have_ a life beyond working on this day in and day out, kid?"

"Uh... no. Not until I get it down," Hikaru said, more puzzled and slightly concerned. Shouldn't a tutor be _happy_ about getting a student who really worked at it?

"Hikaru." She set the papers further aside and left off drumming, instead leaning forward and giving him a very intent look. "I'll be the first to say your progress is incredible, but how long do you think it's going to last if you don't ever take some breaks from it to do something else you enjoy? What about all those other things you like--soccer, that board game? Your mom said you used to _breathe_ playing it every day, it seemed like."

Hikaru shifted uncomfortably. "'S'not like I quit Go, I just--I can only really concentrate on one thing at a time," he protested. "I'm just taking a break from it. And I _am_ still playing a little anyway." For a ghost, but that wasn't something he needed to mention. "Just gimme something new to study again."

She leaned back, folded her hands behind her head, and said, "How long do you figure it takes to master a second language?"

He thought about it, vaguely--'master' seemed like a potentially subjective term. Fluent, like his father with English? How long did his father always mutter that it had taken him after first moving to America? "I dunno, a couple years?"

"I'd say I only mastered Japanese within the last couple years, Hikaru, and I've been here since I was _thirteen_. You can't put the rest of your life on hold to just _pick up_ a second language; you've got to integrate it into your life as is--like I thought I told you. You only need a relatively small working vocabulary to be able to interact with people on a day-to-day basis, and just doing that will increase that vocabulary, and so on. You don't have to be an expert at one thing before you move to another, bud."

Yes, but if you wanted to be an expert you had to, Hikaru thought, annoyed, even though he knew that was a basically pointless argument. He wouldn't have improved his Go even half as fast when he first moved if he hadn't spent most of practically every day in the backyard shed playing against Sai. And his father wouldn't accept anything less than the same level with Japanese, would he?

Danielle just sighed and shook her head. "You are one amazing over-achiever, kiddo. Why not get back in touch with those friends you've mentioned and practice with them instead of in here all the time, then?"

Hikaru blinked, surprised by the reminder of the friends he had actually forgotten about. Maybe that wasn't a bad idea, before he started possibly feeling guilty about having dropped them all without any warning like that...

Gee, he really did get wrapped up in one thing at a time sometimes like she'd said.

.

"...Aaand... how 'bout a goodbye..." Hikaru checked the ubiquitous book, furrowing his brow over the tiny still-meaningless Japanese character, and finally pointed to one onscreen that looked similar to him and asked Sai, "Sayonara?"

_"Ka,"_ the ghost reminded absently, leaning closer over his shoulder and looking at both page and computer. The fan pointed to a virtual character that to Hikaru's eyes looked identical to the one he had guessed. _"Sayonara."_

"Right," Hikaru muttered, clicking it and watching it appear at the end of his message. Satisfied, he clicked Post, then logged off and stretched, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just spent nearly an hour laboriously composing a proper, readable Japanese text apologizing for his absence to his friends in America who would understand it even less than he could.

"Hey, you wanna try something new for a little while? Just for fun?" he asked the ghost, a whim striking. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

In a moment he returned with his long-neglected soccer ball, juggling it between hands to remind his body of its familiarity with it. "C'mon, we can play behind the shed to make sure Mom doesn't see," he decreed. "Can you leave? Ever tried? C'mere, over here."

Hikaru made his gestures more than plain even if he had for once left the book in the shed rather than sticking it in his pocket. The ghost looked understanding even though also hesitant, very tentatively taking steps away from the goban. It stopped halfway between the board and door, strained obviously forward, and then its shoulders slumped slightly and it retreated, looking frustrated and defeated.

"Ah geez." Hikaru jogged back inside, frowning in sympathy as he took in the mere few paces the ghost was evidently able to go. "How come you're not stark raving nuts stuck in here all the time? It's not because you can only play Go, right? Hang on."

He pitched the soccer ball outside into the yard behind the shed, rubbed his hands against his pant legs as he approached the goban, then hauled it up and started carrying it outside, one step at a time, despite the ghost's astonished protests and gesturing. He got the goban all the way outside, ghost following, and plunked it down in the middle of the shed wall on the side opposite the house.

"Can't have Mom thinking I'm going crazy talking to myself," he informed Sai as he got his breath back from the short trip and retrieved the ball. "All right, what we're gonna play is called soccer. You're goalie. I'll just kick the ball toward you, and if I hit the wall without you touching the ball that's a point to me, right? And if you can reach it before it hits that's a point to you. Best of ten wins."

The ghost just stood by the goban, staring around at everything and at him looking bewildered and wondering and totally uncomprehending. Hikaru held up the ball, pointed to it just to be clear, and then kicked it deliberately softly toward the wall.

Sai yelped and jumped aside.

"No, no, you're supposed to try to _block_ it, stupid!"

Hikaru ran forward, lecturing, to demonstrate what to do. The ghost pouted and said something back that sounded accusatory and complaining. Thirty minutes later the game had turned into onesided two-person dodgeball, with the ghost as the goal instead of goalkeeper and proving remarkably agile (and childish), and Hikaru was so involved in shouting and laughing that it never even occurred to him his tutor might have been right about taking a break every once in a while.

.

"Another thing that makes it easier is to find specific goals," Danielle told him. "Bringing in short-term memorization now, but just short-term. You're not trying to learn the whole language _right now_, you're trying to learn the words you'd need to tell your mother about something funny on the Internet today. And she'll understand if some of those words are a little mixed up or still in English. You're trying to get the vocabulary down for joining your friends at karaoke--" she grinned when Hikaru shuddered dramatically, "--or understanding what they're asking and explaining you're not interested, why don't we go to the arcade instead? See? Small steps. Break it up into units, put those together, and you've learned the whole language without even trying. Not quite that easily, of course, but basically."

Hikaru nodded, preparing himself mentally for the step he had already been working on, and then took a deep breath and without using his book pronounced slowly and carefully in Japanese, "I want to burn my school to the ground."

At his tutor's reaction, he quickly straightened his face again, into as innocent and dutiful an expression as possible, and equally correctly recited, "Hi. I am American and just learning to speak this language."

Danielle applauded.

.

"Hi Mom. Bye Mom," Hikaru said as he passed through the kitchen from his room, heading out the back door.

"Hi dear. Bye dear," his mother echoed absently.

Hikaru paused and craned his head to see what she reading, struck by the suspicion that it resembled a cookbook. The only cookbooks his mother owned that he knew of were the ones his father had given her back when they first moved to Japan. "Are we making another expedition into the land of exotic rice?"

"Brat." She raised her eyes from the page and smiled at him. "What do you think of trying sushi?"

"Er..." _Bleah_, his mind suggested rather than reminding him what it was. "...Fish, right?"

"Apparently it's rice and fish together, in a roll."

_Eeuurgh,_ his mind volunteered instantly. He made a face.

She grinned. "I could cook the fish if that makes it sound more appealing."

"_Raw_?" Hikaru demanded, horrified. "Rice and raw fish? Couldn't we get salmonella or something? Come on, Mom!"

"You're learning, I'm learning," she murmured, returning her nose to the cookbook with a smile that looked far too amused at his expense.

Hikaru grimaced, then asked, hoping distraction might produce something more like cheeseburgers with fish on them that he could just pick off, "Hey Mom, if I can find a program that converts webpages and text and stuff between Japanese and English, can I get it?"

"Hm? For studying?"

"Yeah." And to make it easier to communicate with Sai. Coincidentally.

"That sounds nice. Let me know what you find."

.

Hikaru took a deep breath, glanced around at the incomprehensible street signs wishing he needed to check the address, and then entered the building before he could entertain second thoughts and climbed the stairs to the proper floor. The receptionist lady looked up at him and smiled without recognition; Hikaru nodded back, then shook his head and smiled to indicate he wasn't there to play and kept going toward the back of the salon and the lone boy sitting there at a goban with his back to the entrance.

He stopped a few paces away, cleared his throat, and said, "Ah... ohayo, Akira."


	15. In which Hikaru ventures back into Go

A/N: I actually intended to try to get this up a couple days ago since everyone's been so patient, but then I found out I could turn in four response papers I missed in English even though they'd be late... up until today. So yeah. I may have mentioned this before, but never take a condensed English course even if you like writing, you may change your mind by the end... XP

Also, it's hard to type with a kitty in your lap. Yes, totally random. :)

Anyway, here's the next chapter (finally); gimme another couple weeks to get over finals and hopefully I'll be back to my normal post-a-week schedule. In the meantime, enjoy! (And review? *puppy eyes*)

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**15**~ In which Hikaru ventures back into Go ~

Akira turned around immediately, one hand still suspended over the board holding a black stone, blank surprise evident on his face. "Hikaru. You are here."

"Er, yeah. Hai," Hikaru amended, kicking himself mentally to get back to Japanese. Very carefully and awkwardly despite how many times he had practiced it, he apologized for not having come back sooner. Then, concentration for another language at its limit, he switched mental gears again gratefully and repeated just for good measure, "I really am sorry. I swear I actually totally forgot about everything for a while."

Akira had just kept looking at him the whole time, his expression turned neutral, which unfortunately didn't change. After a moment he nodded shortly and said, "I understand. I accept apology."

Hikaru relaxed, even though he'd tried not to let himself be tense.

"Your Japanese have much improved," Akira continued in a polite tone, still looking at him. "You have not played Go much since?"

Hikaru shook his head, grimacing. "No. Iie. Haven't had any time." Still feeling awkward, he glanced at the board in front of Akira, and for a moment saw only a blur of black and white stones, meaninglessly arranged. He found himself surprised to not fall immediately into his analyzing mindset, even though it had been so long since he'd last played. (Clicking for Sai didn't count since he hadn't paid any real attention to those games.)

"I didn't mean to drop it though," he continued hastily, shaking himself away from the board. "I mean just because of it being after the whole pro thing--I mean I wasn't avoiding you on purpose or anything. Or Waya and Isumi, either. Any idea how I can get in touch to apologize to them too? I didn't see them online, and I don't really wanna call--" He shrugged one shoulder, suppressing the urge to grimace again.

"You could ask if Go Association have their addresses," Akira said, looking reserved.

"Ah. Okay." Hikaru wondered whether to ask what or where the Go Association was, then remembered the insei building with Nase and all those kids and assumed he could ask there, so he just nodded. "Arigato. Thanks."

Akira started to speak again, then paused and looked hesitant. "Waya-san and Isumi-san... probably are busy," he finally said carefully, no longer meeting Hikaru's gaze. "Probably studying very hard now."

"Oh-kay." Hikaru frowned. "Any particular reason?"

"The professional exam is now," Akira said quietly.

Hikaru blinked. Then he blinked again. "They're taking an exam to become pros? Now?"

Akira nodded. "Two month exam," he then clarified. "Not today, but now. One month left."

"Oh." Hikaru shifted, then stood still, wondering what to say. It was stupid to think they'd still be at the same place as before just because he'd stopped for a while. "So, in a month, if they pass, they'll be pros?"

"Yes."

"Well... huh." He shifted back to his other foot. "Um, do pros only play other pros, or, like..."

Akira looked nearly as awkward as Hikaru felt. "Some. I will still come to salon even when I am pro."

Hikaru forgot to pay attention to his feet for a moment. Trying to be casual, he asked, "You taking this test right now too?"

Akira stared studiously at the Go stone still in his hand. "No."

"Ah." Hikaru felt an odd loosening sensation, but he didn't pay much attention to it. "That's nice. Good. I mean, I'm sure you could pass, but..." He shook his head, giving up on the attempt to add on belated tact. Then he pointed his finger at Akira and said firmly, "Okay. Then I'll see you around again. I _will_ be back."

Akira smiled for a second, posture relaxing slightly. "Then I will expect you. Do not be late again."

Hikaru nodded, satisfied, and headed out. He would have liked to stay for a game, but not against Akira when he was rusty. He'd just wait, brush up, and then, like he promised, he'd be back.

.

"Hey Mom." Hikaru rooted around in the refrigerator for a snack, taking the opportunity to relax his mind from the math homework Danielle had left him that he was diligently wading through. It instantly flitted to one topic. "When did you decide what you wanted to be when you grew up?"

"Hm?" His mother paused in loading the dishwasher and glanced thoughtfully away out the window. "I don't recall ever wanting to be any one thing in particular very much. I had fantasies, of course, like everyone does: being Scarlett O'Hara in the next Gone with the Wind, competing in professional dressage... that's horseback riding. Since my family was well-off and indulgent, they let me try things, and I lost interest in them all eventually."

She looked at Hikaru and smiled. "Then I met your father, and decided I wanted to get married--and I haven't gotten tired of that yet, even if I have lost my patience every once in a while."

Hikaru made an obligatory face at the mention of romance, mind busy going over everything else she had said. "So you never really knew you wanted to be something, like--_do_ something?"

His mother folded the dish towel she had been using, laid it neatly over the edge of the sink, and turned back to him with her obvious full, though mild, attention. "Is there something in particular you're thinking of, dear?"

"I've just been thinking..." He shrugged, partly uncomfortable and partly unhappy. "How do you _know_ if you'll want to do something for the rest of your life? How can you know, already, that you won't get tired of it someday? How can you be sure?"

"Oh, honey, you don't _have_ to know already." She looked at him compassionately. "Hardly anyone knows what they want to be when they're only thirteen. You have years ahead to think about that."

Hikaru just nodded, his mind not set at ease but not wanting to try discussing it anymore yet.

.

Hikaru wound up calling Waya and Isumi--meaning Isumi, really--anyway, as the idea of turning up unannounced at their front doors seemed even more awkward when he considered it, but Isumi didn't pick up. Factoring in what Akira had told him about the pro exam going on and not wanting to risk disturbing Isumi by calling a lot more, Hikaru stalled for a few days, then finally compromised and headed to the insei building to ask for their addresses and see if they happened to be there.

He felt extremely proud of himself for getting through the brief interaction with the receptionist without getting any weird looks or distinct pauses from her for his Japanese--never minding that she seemed the type who would nod and smile if a tattooed biker in leather and chains walked in out of the blue and asked for a large burlap bag and a back door out. He would just take it as proof of Danielle's assertion that he really did only need basic vocabulary to start with.

After learning that only professional players had their personal information registered with the Go Association, not insei, Hikaru couldn't resist the temptation to poke around a little again like he had when he'd discovered the kids--the insei. He wasn't sure exactly why he wanted to, but reasoned that maybe he'd run into that girl Nase and she could tell him where her friends lived. Or if they'd be around anytime soon so he could happen to run into them instead.

His feet either remembered or stumbled across the way to the same large room that proved to still be full of a random collection of studious-looking kids all quietly playing Go. As before, Hikaru lingered and watched, this time wondering what inspired such drive in all those intent faces. Was that really all there was to deciding they wanted to be professional--just playing one game at a time like that, and then always playing one more afterward?

Could it be just because they never reached the end to playing? That was how he'd started, come to think of it; he'd first found a site that played on nine-by-nine boards instead of nineteen-by-nineteen, learned that, and eventually mastered it. He probably would've dropped off playing Go then, feeling finished, if he hadn't discovered that that was baby Go, and moved on to nineteen-by-nineteen instead. He'd learned it too now, but he still hadn't come close to mastering it--it was just so much bigger it seemed limitless no matter how much he played; different opponents made it infinite.

Maybe that was it. They were out to master it, and the only way to do that was through opponents, so they were aiming up to the best opponents there were to beat them eventually. And there was always someone better, no matter what the field, so they could spend their whole lives on it. Pro Go.

Hikaru's randomly roaming gaze settled on Nase playing some stranger and stopped, recognizing her. He barely kept himself from making a sound or gesture to get her attention, remembering the sensei-master from last time and his disapproval of Hikaru's presence. So instead he forced himself to wait patiently until her game finally ended, then through an interminable post-game discussion he couldn't even follow, then the sensei's further critiques or advice. As soon as she stepped outside the room he pounced on her.

"Hikaru-kun?" she uttered, looking surprised.

"Konnichiwa!" he exclaimed, having to restrain himself after spending such a long time not expending energy. In Japanese he continued, knowing it was clumsy and broken but hopefully still understandable, "Know where Waya or Isumi?"

"Good!" she approved, with a wide smile, while he remembered that she taught kids things. Then she said something too quickly for him to catch.

Reverting to English, he said, "Uh, hang on," and pulled out his translation dictionary, mentally sighing in resignment over the necessity of doing it in public. He flipped through quickly to one of the phrases he'd scribbled and then highlighted, suspecting how often he would need to use it, and read off in Japanese again, "Could you repeat that, please?"

She did so, looking quizzical, and shifted to look over his shoulder as he started scanning for the unfamiliar sound. After a moment she gestured to the book and asked, deliberately slowly, "May I?"

Hikaru handed it over to her. She flipped through it for a moment, settled in the Japanese-first section, and quickly located and pointed to what he'd been looking for.

"Thanks. Arigato," he said gratefully, glad she wasn't the type to make much of his low comprehension level even if she did teach things. She just smiled, and with the book as a mutual aid related where Waya and Isumi were spending most of their time and that they would probably be happy to see him even with the pro exam going on. She was, in fact, going to be meeting up with them the very next day at Waya's house to do some group studying. Hikaru willingly accepted her invitation to come along.

The boys' reactions when he showed up the next morning relieved all his nerves and apprehension almost immediately. Waya rose and thumped him on the back as he hailed him, of which Hikaru perfectly understood the first word, 'Konnichiwa;' while Isumi, ever more restrained than his friend, looked up and greeted him with a smile that looked absolutely genuine. Then he apologized to Hikaru for their having left him on his own while he was struggling because of the exam.

"No, that's fine, I'm sorry too," Hikaru assured them. Really, he had no reason to be mad, especially considering he'd totally brushed them off, even if it was still sort of weird trying to get used to their going pro now, already. He had Sai, and what could they have done anyway? "Let's just call everybody even?"

It was a lot easier to agree and actually feel like everybody was even with Waya and Isumi (and Nase, though she didn't really count in that) than with Akira, maybe because they seemed more friends than rivals. Hikaru was able to settle in almost as though there had never been a break, joining Isumi and Nase on the floor around a half-played game on a goban while Waya apparently continued to hone his skill at his computer in an online match. Hikaru noticed quickly, to the accompaniment of Isumi's sighs and Nase's eye-rolling, that Waya made online practice extremely animated. At least he seemed inclined toward constant muttering rather than anything noisier, though.

Isumi and Nase finished their game relatively quickly, with Nase apologizing for not having provided more of a challenge. Hikaru grasped that Isumi was working hardest on getting through the pro exam, maybe because he was oldest, and Nase was really only there to help him out even though she was technically entered too. So Hikaru offered to play Isumi next, figuring he could at least help out a little also.

He was surprised, and not in a pleasant way, at how their game went right from the start. Isumi had always been a good player; Hikaru only won against him about half the time in the few online matches they'd played before, and he had for some reason assumed they would both still be at about that rough level even if Isumi had improved. But Isumi _had_ improved, and Hikaru hadn't--he hadn't played in at least a couple of months, and Isumi gave him no chance to ease back in and rub off his rustiness.

As the game continued Hikaru came face to face with the unexpected realization that, even though he hadn't backslid or anything, he simply wasn't good enough anymore even to give Isumi the challenge he'd offered. It was an extremely unwelcome realization. He didn't know what to do about it, so he just kept playing, even though he knew he stood no chance of winning.

Fortunately in the middle of their game Waya suddenly let out a shout, startling both players and spectator into turning around and staring at him.

"Waya!" Isumi said irritably. "_What_?"

Hikaru felt distractedly proud of his understanding of the single simple question in Japanese.

He didn't understand Waya's answer, of course, as it was delivered far too fast, even faster than the normal rate of speech, but it prompted Nase to roll her eyes and mutter something disgustedly and Isumi to sigh, sounding exasperated. Then he explained to Hikaru, just like he always had before, "Waya study new NetGo player, famous--mystery. Think he find answer to one question of player."

"Huh?" Hikaru said, not having understood in the slightest.

Isumi rose from the goban to stand over Waya, Hikaru following, and pointed to the screen where what looked like a completed game from NetGo was displayed. "Player famous--mystery," Isumi repeated, pointing to a side box containing Japanese characters much resembling chicken scratch to Hikaru's eyes. "Here ask question..." He paused a moment, mouth working on translating, forehead wrinkled into a frown. "...'What always come toward, but never reach?'"

"Kami no Itte!" Waya yelled triumphantly, at the same time Hikaru automatically said, "Tomorrow."

He looked at Waya, puzzled; both Japanese boys looked at him, making him switch his attention to both. "Uh... what's always coming but never actually arrives; tomorrow. It's a riddle."

He knew it because it was one of the riddles he'd looked up when practicing translating with the ghost's help during its games.

"What's kami-thingie? Doesn't kami mean like god?"

"Hand of God," Isumi said, slightly distractedly, still looking at him. "Best Go game--Waya think mean Hand of God, all player try reach, but never reach."

Waya, with a scowl, had spun around in his computer chair and brought up another page showing another game and more incomprehensible text. He jabbed a finger at it and spoke rapidly to Isumi.

"What kind circle not round?" Isumi translated, looking back to Hikaru along with Waya. Nase was observing with silent interest, still from her place by the goban.

"Uh..." That sparked recognition also, though it took a moment to reword it into its original phrasing, and Hikaru thought, uneasy but not acknowledging it, that he really should have put more thought into how well the riddles he'd chosen would translate between languages. "Ring, what kind of ring isn't round..." A boxing ring. Which might be an American-only sport, he suddenly realized, alarmed--he really hadn't put any thought at all into those riddles when he'd stuck them up for all the world to see. But why were they such a big deal? "Uh, circle, ring, um, sphere... ball... h-hoop... nope, no idea on that one."

Instead of trying to look convincing and probably failing, he leaned closer to the computer monitor and tried to distract them. "So what's up with this? Riddles on a Go site?"

"Jaro," Waya pronounced, giving Hikaru another stab of alarm even though he already knew that. He continued indecipherably; then, at a jab from Isumi, stopped and presumably repeated, very slowly and with what would have been embarrassingly small words if that really wasn't about the limit of Hikaru's comprehension (and even then guessing a bit based on context), "Jaro new player, very good. Never lost, only one--" Something to do with time?, couldn't mean loss... Hikaru suddenly remembered that Jaro had timed out on a game once, when Sai first started helping him learn Japanese, and refocused with faint relief in time to understand, "No one know who Jaro is."

"Why would that be a big deal?" Hikaru asked as casually as he could, genuinely wondering. Had he let Jaro move up to Elite too quickly or something? These people were seriously trying to put that much deeper meaning into _riddles_? "It's a website, nobody knows who anybody is--there's a bunch of people here who're really good."

"Know who some are," Isumi told him seriously. "Some pro player here--Jaro play them. Very rare player from nowhere beat pro player. So people wonder."

"Pros?" Hikaru squeaked, astonished. _Pros_ played NetGo? His ghost from his backyard shed had been playing Go online against professionals and _beaten_ them? That was a little more evidence than he'd intended of an online sensei to point to if it was ever necessary!

"And what about those riddles then?" he asked, trying to collect his thoughts and figure out what to say or not say. He clearly hadn't paid enough attention to how Jaro's introduction had affected the site.

Isumi shrugged. "Must mean something. Mystery. Why say riddle, why nothing else? What mean?"

Oh, they'd _never_ believe that was a random kid's Japanese practice if they were working out meanings like 'perfect game' from 'something that never comes,' Hikaru thought faintly. What had he done now?

He cleared his throat. "Erm, just out of curiosity, exactly how big a deal is this Jaro player? How many people could possibly be interested in this?"

"Whole site," Isumi said promptly, then, as if that weren't bad enough, added thoughtfully, "Maybe whole Go Internet."

_Crap._


	16. In which Hikaru finds a family legacy

A/N: I'm sooo sorry, people; yes, I completely forgot about posting this chapter until now... I was kinda basically playing WoW all day (it's addictive once you get back in, I swear). I'm not really satisfied with this chapter yet either, the whole Japanese/English speech seems really clumsy to me... *sigh* maybe I'll come back and revise. Suggestions welcome.

It's funny how it actually seems harder to focus and write in summer vacation now that I've got so much nothing to do... but I still wouldn't trade it for the world. :D I'm FREEEE *dances around* (in my head, because it's kinda late to be doing that kind of thing where I am ;P) Huge appreciation for everyone who reviewed, and if I start getting a little later replying from now on it's because I'm actually spending quite a bit less time on my computer now that I can do other things like read novels and play video games for as long as I want, not because I'm less appreciative. But you guys should review more anyway, so I'm encouraged (/reminded) to write more and get back to a faster updating schedule! ;D

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention--new (minor) character introduction in here...

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**16**~ In which Hikaru discovers a family legacy ~

"Goals," Hikaru muttered to himself, glancing out his window at the innocuous shed still sitting in the backyard just like always. He flipped pages in his tired translation dictionary, back and forth and back then forth. "Makes things easier if you set goals on what to learn... one conversation at a time..."

He thought he really understood what Danielle had meant now. When she said goals made learning easier, what she was really talking about was _motivation_. Hikaru had set himself a goal, a very specific one, that he'd work on until he mastered half the entire language if that was what it took...

Single-minded, he studied his book. It didn't matter if the knowledge only stuck for the short term or not. He had a lot of possible words and phrases to memorize and he wanted to get them all down and be able to speak them perfectly.

.

"Hikaru."

Hikaru glanced up from his plate warily. Dinner had become a more silent meal than usual ever since his father had changed his schools on him, even after the tutor--not that Hikaru was still holding a grudge or anything, he wasn't like that, but... well, no reason to be all nice and forgiving either.

"Your mother and I already discussed this earlier," his father continued after a short pause, clearing his throat. "We're going to visit your grandparents sometime this week."

Hikaru sat and blinked. After a moment he asked, "I have grandparents? Didn't they die when I was like two?"

"Those were my parents, honey," his mother said mildly.

His father nodded shortly, looking uncomfortable. "Your Japanese grandparents. We've been... estranged from them as a family for... quite some time."

"Why do we want anything to do with them now then?" Hikaru asked, sticking a random forkful from his plate into his mouth. He thought he should probably feel more involved, but he wasn't sure he felt anything about it one way or the other. He'd gone thirteen years without any rememberable grandparental influence already, and he had American relatives he saw on holidays and stuff. These people were strangers.

"We live in the same country again," his father said stiffly. Hikaru maturely didn't point out that they'd been living in the same country again for over half a year so that was hardly a reason. "Your grandparents are traditional people. Circumstances are finally such that..."

"We should all be able to get along," his mother supplied with a wry smile after a moment of heavy silence. Hikaru wondered why his father had brought it up when he apparently couldn't even talk about it very well.

"What's that supposed to--" Hikaru stopped eating and scowled briefly. "Oh. Nemmind."

His father scowled back at him even more briefly, probably because of his lapse of diction, but composed himself at a discreet, visible nudge from his mother's elbow. Hikaru kept sulking. He hadn't even met the only grandparents he had left for over half a year just because he couldn't speak their stupid language?

Maybe it was the grandparents' fault, if they were so traditional. Like he needed even more relatives disapproving of him.

"Why don't you help me clean up tonight, Ru?" his mother remarked, rising from the table. "Honey, are you finished?"

His father nodded, muttered something about some work to get done, and headed away toward his computer. Hikaru absently started collecting plates and utensils and passing them to his mother. They worked in silence for a few minutes, putting away the leftover food, while Hikaru adjusted to the unexpected announcement.

"So... why exactly are we 'estranged'?" he finally asked. "I don't think I remember them at all."

"Well, his parents didn't exactly approve of his transfer to America back before you were born, and even less of his marrying me and staying over there indefinitely."

Hikaru blinked. "How could anybody not like you?"

She smiled. "Considering they've never met me, I believe it was more the fact that I wasn't Japanese, and wasn't very interested in becoming so."

"Then why are we--"

"Things change, sweetie." She looked at him compassionately. "Don't fret about it. Grandchildren are generally soft spots even if there are problems between the parents and grandparents."

Hikaru just grimaced and finished clearing the table. He made enough trouble for himself on his own; why did he have to get dragged into other people's messes too? Even if they were family?

.

"In here." Hikaru remembered to smile at the little Japanese kid he'd managed to lure off the street as he approached the shed, having successfully bargained a candy bar in exchange for a quick visit to play a game. His goal was almost complete. He'd been pretty confident about everything he'd said and the kid had said, and the kid hadn't looked at him funny for his Japanese once.

The kid looked around curiously as he entered the shed. Hikaru held his breath, watching Sai from the corner of his eye as the ghost started and fluttered at the new presence. The kid didn't react.

"Here's the board," Hikaru recited cheerfully in Japanese, swallowing his apprehension and pointing to the goban. The kid looked at it dubiously but sat down on one side. Hikaru gestured as subtly as possible to Sai to sit down opposite.

The ghost did so. The kid kept looking at Hikaru.

Sai glanced at Hikaru, then, with a hesitant expression, extended the fan and tapped a standard opening move. Clear, obvious, couldn't possibly be missed without being blind.

"You gonna come play or not?" the kid asked impatiently in hard-to-follow Japanese.

Hikaru sighed. The ghost silently bowed its head and withdrew from the goban. For whatever reason, Hikaru was the only one who could see the presence in his backyard shed.

Crap. So much for possibly introducing Sai to his friends to explain Jaro...

.

Hikaru resisted the urge to tug on his collar, reminding himself again that he was perfectly comfortable in his clothes. It was just something about having the grandfather he'd never met before looking at him from the seat across from his while his grandmother presumably entertained his parents in conversation. And his mind was empty of all the Japanese he'd theoretically learned so far, which made it even more unfair that his mother didn't seem to be having too many problems. Since when had she been studying it?

Glancing around the room in an attempt to find a distraction, he was surprised to notice a goban in one corner. He turned back to the grandfather--his grandfather--and addressed him for the first time since introductions, distraction making him forget his self-consciousness.

"You play Go?" he asked haphazardly in his developing second language, pointing to the board just to be clear.

His grandfather's weathered face developed an expression of something like interest. "_You_ play Go?" he returned in deliberately slow Japanese, surprise evident.

Hikaru shrugged, reminded of his recent failure of a game with Isumi and how out of practice he had to be. "Some," he said, hoping he chose the right disclaimer.

His grandfather gestured him firmly toward the board. "Let us play."

The grandmother and his parents glanced at them as the two moved to the board, faintly surprised expressions on his father's and grandmother's faces and a smile on his mother's. Then Hikaru sat down, swallowed his nerves, and forgot them. He played.

Somewhere in the back of his head Hikaru expected to have to leave it unfinished, since Go games could run for quite a while sometimes and they surely wouldn't stay long enough for a serious one, but any conscious concerns of time quickly faded and he actually played two full games before he even thought about it again.

It was... relaxing, in a way, to play his grandfather, but stimulating at the same time. He suspected that the old man was going easy on him in the beginning, but that was fine with him, because it took him a little while to ease back into the views and twists of mind that let him play Go effectively. Isumi had been too serious, too fast; Akira probably would have slaughtered him; but his grandfather didn't really matter anyway so he didn't feel under pressure playing.

The old man made occasional sounds while they played, sometimes just grunts, sometimes sounding pleased or impressed. Hikaru found himself grinning occasionally in response as he resettled into his usual playing mindset. He even tried playing a couple of his usual kinds of 'mistake' traps.

His grandfather fell for one, then smartened up and spotted the second. Hikaru was indignant when he seemed to step into it anyway and then somehow managed to turn it completely back on Hikaru with an out-of-the-box move he hadn't even seen the possibility of. He gaped at it for a second before remembering his dignity.

The old man uttered a smug syllable Hikaru was too preoccupied to process. Hikaru scowled at him and ordered himself to pretend he was playing the ghost. What was the best trap he could play against Sai at this point?

"Poor idea," the old man pronounced when Hikaru played his next hand, jabbing a wrinkled finger for emphasis while Hikaru started. Hikaru looked up at him indignantly again. He no longer noticed the deliberately slow speech--it was actually helpful, whether it was meant to be condescending or not. "You try again when I still expect it? Can you think no further?"

"I haven't played in months!" Hikaru retorted, before remembering to convert it--choppily--to Japanese. He didn't care how well or properly he did, though. He didn't like thinking that the old man was right.

"No excuse," came the clipped, implacable response.

"You'd be--you" what was the word for expect, "look whole game if I wait now!" Hikaru insisted, and fell back to real words again. "Now you're expecting it!"

The old man gave him an almost shark-like smile. It needed no words to say 'of course.'

Incensed, Hikaru stuck out his tongue at him, unable to come up with any more eloquent comeback given his limited vocabulary. The old man laughed unexpectedly, reached across the goban and ruffled his hair.

"Good boy," he remarked, while Hikaru was ducking away and attempting to smooth his hair out. "Good to see the talent passed down."

Hikaru stopped smoothing, surprised. After spending so much time spent working against the ghost, it had never occurred to him that any of his skill might be hereditary rather than learned.

"How good are you?" he asked, paying careful attention to getting the question how he wanted this time, genuinely curious about the answer.

The old man shrugged deliberately, then stretched. "Amateur Meijin title."

"Really?" Hikaru blinked, checked his memory, and smiled slowly. That was the same first tournament he'd won, apparently so surprisingly. Maybe he should bring the trophy over if they visited again. "Hey, Gramps..." He placed another stone, nonchalantly. No reason to wind down their game. The Japanese words came surprisingly smoothly and presumably correctly when they took second place in his attention: "I want practice more again."

He peeked up through his bangs, biting his lip to keep from expressing too much too soon. "Would you maybe help?"

"What's this--?" 'Gramps' sounded strangely foreign and garbled when spoken by someone who didn't know English. Hikaru sighed and thought rapidly on the translation.

Okaa-san was mother... oto-san was father... o-... crap, crap, crap, he'd _studied_ it... ojii-san was gramps! Unless it was grandmother. What was the other one?

"Ojii-san," he said, not willing to guess any longer. He had a fifty-fifty chance anyway.

The old man grunted, sounding pleased. Hikaru guessed that he'd remembered the right word and tried to keep looking casual. "How good you think you are?" the old man returned, placing his own stone.

Hikaru slapped down his next and jumped to his feet, pointing and crowing, "HA! You fell for it! You fell for it! _Got_ you, Gramps!"

The other adults all swiveled and stared at his jubilation, heedless of cultural differences or suitable behavior in company. Thankfully, his grandfather just sat back and laughed, apparently good-humored about having fallen for another trap (even if it wasn't really complete), this time not on purpose.

"Hikaru! Behave!" his father hissed, looking pained.

Hikaru plopped down again cross-legged, still beaming.

"Brat," his grandfather remarked. "Yes. You practice hard, I teach you."

"I'll _beat_ you," Hikaru declared, on fire with success, still forgetting to translate. "Let's play!"

His grandmother and parents shook their heads with varying degrees of tolerance for his enthusiasm and turned back to their own conversation. Hikaru didn't even notice, his whole mind once again involved in the game.


	17. In which Sai is introduced to Jaro

A/N: Here we go, newest chapter hot off the presses! *grin* And I actually did just finish this within the last half hour, so please excuse any small grammatical errors anywhere--I figured you guys would rather get the chapter now than wait another couple days for my normal more thorough proofreading. Especially since this one features... *drum roll* the first real conversation (sort of ;D) between Sai and Hikaru! *bows to imaginary audience*

Okay, yes, I'm a little high right now... oh, and if anyone can tell--yes, this chapter was written with access to my JSL book from the library again. I think it makes better content than having to sort of vaguely guess my way along multi-language conversations. Also, just in case of inaccuracies, how Hikaru's conversion software works is basically completely made up (especially since I think most web browsers can actually do translating on their own... but I needed more than that). :D Enjoy!

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**17**~ In which Sai is introduced to Jaro ~

"So let's see..." Hikaru enabled the newly installed conversion software for the first time and navigated to NetGo, curious to explore the mostly-Japanese site for real since having first accidentally discovered it back in the American school. "Hey, check it out, Sai, they've got forums..."

The ghost leaned over his shoulder and observed equally interestedly as the new page loaded even though it wouldn't be able to understand the now-English text. Hikaru paused before he started skimming the forum thread titles and played around with the new web browser options instead until he figured out how to switch between English and Japanese easily. Then he went back to the actual site... and groaned.

"They've got an _entire forum_ on you? The _top_ one?"

Sai asked a question, and Hikaru clicked the forum link before switching it to Japanese so the ghost could read too, waiting impatiently until he could take another turn and start reading some of them, though one glance at the top thread titles almost convinced him to hit Back and pretend he'd never seen or heard any of it. _Who is Jaro?_, _Everyone with Jaro kifu post them here_, _Opponents of Jaro?_, _Jaro riddles_, and _Best Jaro game?_ scrambled into lines of tiny characters, and Hikaru heard the ghost emit a startled sound even though he didn't turn his head to look at its reaction.

His peripheral vision, and the still not-quite-subdued instinct of something coming at him, alerted him to Sai's fan prodding at his shoulder anyway. _"Jaro-san... kore wa desu ka?"_

"Uh... who's Jaro?" Oh, great. How was he supposed to explain that with the simple words he knew?

Then he brightened with inspiration, opened his Notepad program and typed, 'Jaro is your name when you play online.' Then he clicked again to convert it to Japanese, the letters having still shown up English since he was using an English keyboard.

The ghost made another startled sound, this time also sounding impressed, when the words changed and leaned a little further over Hikaru's shoulder to read them, then pulled back a little and looked down at Hikaru with evident surprise. Operating on a hunch, Hikaru opened the Character Symbols box in his computer and set them to kanji, grinning smugly to himself when Sai immediately made a pleased sound and started pointing the fan at different characters. Hikaru obediently inserted them all into the text file, then closed the dialog box and re-converted.

'_I am Jaro?_' the converter translated.

"Hai," Hikaru agreed, grinning again with slightly foolish success at the first ever English message he'd gotten from the ghost. "Hey, Sai, we're communicating!"

He typed that in and translated it too, feeling even more successful when the ghost grinned delightedly back. Deciding he felt like celebrating his so-far brilliant idea, he went back to the web browser and switched to a search engine, locating a new Japanese site that allowed two people to play Go against each other from the same computer if they wanted.

"Here, you go first," he allowed generously, gesturing to the familiar empty grid after confirming with a glance that the default settings for time limits were fine.

Sai indicated a placement, and Hikaru clicked for it and then concentrated on the virtual board himself, wondering vaguely if playing online against an opponent right beside him would feel any different from his old online games or his tutoring-battles on the goban behind them.

He made his own first placement, and was startled by the ghost's sudden exclamation rather than the studious seriousness it almost always seemed to regard the other online games it played with. It gestured generally at the laptop screen with an eagerly flicking fan until Hikaru, at a guess, brought up Notepad again, then made an impatient sound that prompted him to open the kanji box again.

Translated--into slightly imperfect English, but Hikaru figured that was only to be expected from software rather than a real fluent human no matter how good it was--the ghost had just suffered the revelation that all its other online matches had been against people too rather than simply from a magic box. Now Sai wanted to know where those other people were since it still couldn't see them and the magic box wasn't big enough to hold anyone.

"Oh, boy." Hikaru sighed and rested his forehead against his hand, trying to decide how exactly to best explain the Internet to a ghost who'd lived in a shed for who knew how long and was apparently perfectly willing to believe in things like magic boxes instead of computers. "Have you ever even noticed, like, airplanes going overhead? Weird metal birds that are actually miles and miles high instead of just tiny that make funny sounds and all? Whaddaya think those are, magic origami or something?"

Sai just made an uncomprehending, slightly petulant sound.

"Okay, okay..." Hikaru sighed again and scrubbed at his forehead, then started typing out the most basic description he could think of for technological magic boxes. "You see... um... it is a magic box, see, that works like... well a bunch of people have them, and--what you put in one can--pop up in another, yeah? So we're just using the same one right now, but..."

When he tried converting, one glance at the ghost's face made him grimace and start typing it again, this time trying to think of more precise words and phrasing that probably stood a better chance of translating accurately. After a moment of a slightly dubious expression, Sai nodded and appeared to accept it. Hikaru blew out a silent breath of relief and went back to their online match, which they had left with all of one stone each on the board already.

Two hands later Sai paused again and indicated him to go back to Notepad, then through text asked for further clarification of the whole Jaro thing they had just been investigating a little before. Hikaru reluctantly went back to the NetGo forum on the unfortunate mystery player, almost whimpering in dismay when they started reading the first topic together (switching back and forth between languages a few posts at a time), and realized that some people were so interested in the Jaro phenomenon that they were actually talking about things like watching other Go sites for players with Jaro's style and tracking IP addresses to try to figure out where Jaro played from and possibly narrow his identity down from there.

"Crap, crap, crap..." Hikaru chanted to himself, almost moaning, while Sai alternately blinked or smoothed his face in surprise.

'_I am Jaro?_' the ghost reconfirmed through the conversion, beginning to look almost as disconcerted as Hikaru when he nodded, '_This is all about me?_'

"Stupid fanatics," Hikaru grumbled, settling for complaining about the hubbub since he had no idea how to try to control it. "It's just a stupid game, haven't any of these people ever heard of having a stupid life?"

For courtesy's sake, at Sai's questioning glance, he typed 'They're idiots' for him, then reluctantly pulled himself together a little and added after that, 'It's such a big deal. What should we do?' before hitting Enter like he always did in chatrooms and then converting it.

The ghost tapped its chin thoughtfully with its everpresent fan, looking slightly hesitant, before finally shaking its head and directing him to compose a line that translated to, '_Is this bad?_'

Hikaru squirmed. "Well... I dunno exactly... it is if we don't want the attention."

With clearly visible unhappiness, the ghost then slowly composed, '_Should Jaro stop playing?_'

Hikaru stared up at it, surprised into speechlessness by such an offer of sacrifice, considering Sai really had no life beyond the game besides seeming to adore it. 'No, no,' he quickly typed, moved beyond his own harrassed thoughts without even consciously realizing it in response. 'We'll... figure something out. Jaro still plays.'

The ghost looked so relieved and grateful that Hikaru briefly thought it might hug him if it had been corporeal. That made it a good thing it wasn't, of course, but he still tolerated the idea so well that his spur-of-the-moment promise solidified in his own mind and he resolved to start figuring out how to keep Sai playing even with all the trouble his play was causing. There had to be some way of controlling it.

But for now he didn't want to worry about that. He tabbed back to the halted Go board before bringing up Notepad once more to type. "But let's just play again now, okay? It's been ages. Don't you want to groan over how stupid I've gotten before beating me back into shape?"

.

"Well, kiddo, good news and bad news." Danielle handed back the essay in romaji Hikaru had clumsily put together and given to her during their last session--English (or whatever now) wasn't his best subject even if he tried his best--and looked at him perfectly calmly while Hikaru tried to hide the slight apprehension those words caused.

"I'm still doing okay with progress, aren't I?"

"Yup." Before he could feel relief or wonder what was wrong then, she said, "In fact, I think you're about ready to go back to school."

Hikaru blanched. He knew it, and he didn't care, as his mind scrambled busily to put together the most logical and persuasive arguments he could come up with as to why he definitely shouldn't in the shortest amount of time possible. His tutor just laughed.

"Don't panic, Hikaru, I know you have bad memories from before but I honestly think you can handle it now. That's not to say I'll quit, of course; you're still going to need just as much help with your homework and all, but I think you've learned enough to be able to sit through classes without feeling totally lost and to be able to interact a little with your classmates if you want. They can probably be a lot of help by now in improving your vocabulary."

"But... but..." Hikaru protested, still trying to find reasons to put it off.

Danielle just shook her head deliberately. "Nope. You know you have to do it sometime anyway. If you want some advice on how to make the transition easier, concentrate on the kids in your English class--they're most likely to be able to talk a little of your lingo, and why not trade homework with them some to make friends, help each other out?"

Hikaru unhappily swallowed down his instinct to resist, unfortunately able to see the logic in her suggestion, but that didn't mean he liked it or wanted to try it. "You don't mean like _now_ now though, do you?"

Oh that didn't sound whiny at all. Not that he wasn't willing to shove dignity under the bed for a moment if it granted him a reprieve.

She gave him a knowing but tolerant grin. "Why don't I suggest to your parents going back after New Year? That seems like the best time, at the start of a new term and all."

New Year's. Well, that gave him a few more weeks, and she was right that he was stuck for it sometime... reluctantly Hikaru nodded, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Dang. He was going back to school... while his friends were going to be getting to play Go every day instead, and getting paid for it. Briefly he wondered if his father would have let him drop out of school entirely if he had taken the pro test thing with Waya and Isumi, maybe if he used the argument of getting a steady job, even starting a career, so young and starting toward supporting himself... nah. His parents probably wouldn't have let him do that even if he'd already mastered Japanese beforehand.

A new thought suddenly occurred to him, and he immediately resolved that he was going to make sure he didn't look like all the other kids at his school when he had to go back despite his previous agony at standing out, and he fell to planning how exactly he was going to get that accomplished this time. Over six months since the first time was past due, really; he'd just gotten so used to it he'd forgotten about it. He didn't quite trust his own proficiency in communicating to be enough to avoid mistakes yet; Danielle was great, but it was still his parents who paid her so it was safer not to even mention it to her; Isumi was still busy with the pro test, so it was probably better not to ask him...

.

"Hey, Akira!"

Akira looked up, startled out of his reverie over the goban, and stared blankly at the equally surprised customer in front of him for a second before swiveling around and attempting to restrain the exuberant other boy for his inopportune timing despite his pleasure at his keeping his word of coming again. "Hikaru, I am playing--"

"You can finish that later; c'mon, I found a place online that has hours listed but I got on the wrong train accidentally so we don't have that much time now--"

"Hikaru!" Akira hissed again, flushing slightly from embarrassment, and started to apologize to the dumbfounded customer, but Hikaru grabbed his arm and half-pulled him out of his seat before he could finish, probably helped by Akira's being too surprised to react.

"Sorry--gomen," Hikaru called over his shoulder at the old man as he dragged Akira toward the salon entrance. "I want to get this done today, before I forget and spend the money on something else--"

"_Gomen nasai_," Akira corrected furiously, before calling back a more formal apology helplessly, "Sumimasen!"

"He can play you any time," Hikaru dismissed as they reached the street outside, still hauling Akira along by the arm. Akira wondered, still mortified and with some anger, if the ex-American had any idea that the customers in the salon _paid_ to play him rather than simply bursting in whenever they felt like it like a certain someone. "I didn't want to tell my mom what was I doing since she might tell my dad and he can't tell me not to after I've already gotten it done, so I can't be gone long, and like I said I already got lost just coming here since I wasn't paying attention--"

"Hikaru!" Akira exclaimed for the third time, jerking to a halt and yanking his arm out of the other boy's grasp but refraining from straightening his sleeve as he wanted to, even if he wasn't quite sure why. "_What_ are we to do?"

Hikaru stopped and blinked at him with a slightly innocent expression. "Didn't I say? I need to you to come with me to get my bangs re-dyed."

Then he grinned mischievously. "Hey, you could think about getting something done while we're there too--ever thought about shocking everybody with green hair?"


	18. In which Hikaru boosts Jaro's reputation

A/N: Not much action this time, but to make up for it... an evil cliffhanger. :) Anyone who missed Hikaru's American friends, though, rejoice (partly)! And this is the first chapter posted after being reviewed by my excellent new summer beta, attackfish, who has an advantage over me in actually knowing some of the Japanese language and culture and who I am hugely grateful to for the assistance. :)

Toddling off to bed now... since the old man next door has finally stopped playing his bass music (after midnight)... *shakes head* Gotta love neighbors.

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**18**~ In which Hikaru increases Jaro's fame ~

Hikaru wandered randomly around the streets of Tokyo, hands stuck in his coat pockets, feeling like hiding somewhere from school looming even if he would never admit it. On autopilot he scanned shop signs as he passed them, trying to recognize any of the characters (and failing) and then glancing in their windows to try to figure out they were, vaguely thinking about Go salons and what Waya and Isumi might be doing with that pro test. One of the stores he passed seemed to be a coffee shop, or what was it--a cyber café. Hikaru considered for a moment, then wandered in, successfully transacting the fee required for computer use, and settled in one corner where no one could look over his shoulder. Maybe he should go online and play some Go; he hadn't done that for himself much since his laptop had pretty much permanently transferred out to the backyard shed rather than his room.

He didn't really feel like playing Go, though, didn't think he could concentrate on it very well, so instead he found his hands directing him on their own to the chatroom he used to use so frequently with his old friends in America. He remained doubtful about the wisdom of signing in there even as he did so, despite the apology he had sent them, especially since he hadn't gone back since. But he signed in anyway and then sat back and waited a moment, briefly wondering what time it was across the world, and the screen informed he had one friend currently online.

_Hey Ru,_ Ami posted a moment later.

_Hey Ami_, he posted back, abruptly nervous and hoping she wouldn't be holding a grudge just because he'd been a brat.

_So how's it going over there?_

Well, that could have an accusing tone or it could not. _Kinda crazy,_ he typed. _You want to hear it all?_

_Sure_.

He took that as encouraging rather than neutral or sarcastic. Ami had always been the most level-headed, willing to forgive, of the four of them, although she had always said he was. _Had_--he hadn't seen her in over half a year; she might not be the same anymore. _Well, I'm finally learning Japanese,_ he started to type, but then realized he didn't really want to talk about that. So he backspaced, then instead confessed, _Well, I screwed myself up pretty well, and don't have a clue what to do. You remember my Go ghost--_

Then he paused, added a question mark, and hit Enter.

_Yeah_, Ami posted. _Kilimanjaro, right? Or did you switch to Fuji?_

_Actually, his name's Sai, _Hikaru typed automatically, then stopped, decided to leave that be, and continued, _Do you really believe in him? I mean, it? The ghost?_

There was a pause before her reply appeared. _Well... I don't know, Ru._

He sighed and closed his eyes, but when he opened them she had added, _Let's pretend I do though and go on. I'm suspending all disbelief for the moment._

With Ami, he remembered, that really was practically the same thing as her believing, so he leaned forward and started summing up the inadvertant mess he had created by letting Sai play online. _These people are obsessed, Ami,_ he ended with a whine that he didn't bother about since the bare words could be interpreted as a statement. _They were talking about tracking my IP address! They can't really do that, can they? They couldn't tell my laptop's mine?_

_Depends on their computer skills,_ Ami posted back not very encouragingly. _I don't know if it would be legal, but... why not start playing from different PCs rather than just your laptop? Find some Starbucks or whatever equivalents and go online from there, that would make you one of a million people in Tokyo it could be._

_Sai's stuck in the goban. I can't haul that around into random stores,_ Hikaru posted, scoffing. _And I sure can't afford to buy a million different computers and haul them into the shed either._

_Oh, yeah, _Ami posted. _Why's he stuck in the goban?_

Hikaru paused. Blinked. _Uh... I don't know. He just is. I guess he haunts it. I know he is though, I tried to get him to leave once and he literally couldn't get like six feet from it._

_Weird,_ Ami posted. _Yeah, I guess that's out then. Why not set up a system with those Go friends of yours to use different PCs, like you give them the account password and then text them Jaro's moves and they text you the opponent's?_

_I haven't *told* them!_ Hikaru typed immediately, horrified. _They'd think I'm nuts! Seeing a ghost? A Go ghost?_

_Right, but you're not worried about me thinking you're nuts, _Ami posted. _What's the difference?_

Hikaru hesitated, but couldn't come up with any real reason not to tell her, especially since being in America she was probably too far away to call a shrink on him. _They could come over and find out the only one who can see him is me,_ he posted miserably. _I tried seeing if a neighborhood kid could once. Seems like he would've reacted if he had._

_That's Sai,_ Ami posted, confusing him for a moment. _I'm talking about Jaro._

_But they're the same!_

_But only you know that. If you don't want to tell them the truth anyway why not make up something about Jaro being paralyzed or something so you play for him, and now you want help protecting his identity 'cause he doesn't like attention? Pretend they're some grownup you don't want to talk to; you get creative enough when you're doing that._

_Har de har har,_ Hikaru typed, even though he couldn't exactly argue with that. _I dunno; that would be... weird. I get nervous when I lie._

_Oh, still no better huh?_ Ami posted._ Well... I guess I could always ask around school or something on the IP thing. I'm sure there's a way to hide addresses if there's a way to find them, and there are plenty of geeks at my junior high._

_That'd be great,_ Hikaru typed gratefully. _While you're at it, know any good riddles?_

_Uh... riddles?_

_For Jaro,_ he confessed. _Ever since I found out people are dissecting them like that I haven't been able to come up with a single one without thinking about how they might interpret it and then thinking it's no good and then thinking what if they start coming up with conspiracy theories instead about why Jaro's not posting any more. I'm driving myself nuts._

Ami posted three laughing face emoticons in a row, which Hikaru did not take to indicate sympathy.

_You should stick with total silence,_ she posted a moment later. _I wonder how long it would take his disciples to decide it was because they hadn't been interpreting his wisdom accurately and what they'd do then._

_Funny man,_ Hikaru typed, scowling.

_Girl,_ she posted back promptly.

_If these disciples find out who I am they might start stalking me for his wisdom! What the heck am I supposed to tell them?_

_Just put up whatever you would have before. Or forget about it and let them make of it what they will, _Ami posted. _Get off defense and go on offense. You play soccer anymore?_

_Not really,_ Hikaru posted, dubious at her advice.

_Well you used to, and you sure wouldn't like this. You're letting these people hem you in and you're trying to back up instead of blowing through them. Stop worrying about what they think! If you're freaking out because Jaro beat some pro, go online as Jaro and challenge the best pro out there! Sheesh, Hikaru, unless you really changed that much since you moved be yourself!_

Hikaru sat and blinked dumbly at the screen. He could almost hear Ami berating him, probably because she tended to hoard exclamation points for only places with most meaning. Three in a row?

On a whim, he typed _/poke_, an old game among the four that Trey had started for finding out moods and smacking sense into each other when they weren't in person. Ami promptly posted back _/smack_, followed by a smiley face.

Hikaru grinned. _Okay, okay. Hey, thanks for forgiving me, Ames,_ he posted. _I know I already said sorry before, but..._

_Was that what that was?_ she posted, causing him to frown. _I tried Googling some of the characters, but you used weird ones. How'd you learn that so fast anyway?_

_I didn't, I've had Sai help me with all that, _Hikaru typed, bewildered and increasingly chagrined. _You mean--oh geez, I seriously used kanji?_

_Yep,_ she posted.

He blew out his breath in a sigh. _Crap. Sorry. Well, that's what it said, basically just sorry. I kinda got really focused learning Japanese for a while when Dad switched schools on me. If it makes it any better I totally forgot about all the people I've met here too._

_Only you, Ru,_ Ami posted, with another smiley face. _Honestly, I can see that happening. And I already decided it's okay by me._

_Huh?_ Hikaru posted, truly surprised. Level-headed was one thing, but he'd still expected to have to grovel.

_Well... I tell my friends you're my overseas penpal now. Which is true now that you're actually writing again,_ she posted. Hikaru sat and stared at the screen blankly for a moment, first thinking it would make no sense to tell Trey and Jamal that and then realizing that she must have made new friends.

_Girls?_ he posted, detachedly curious. It didn't hurt as much anymore to think that things had changed for them too, and at the moment he still felt slightly relieved she was willing to talk to him as if almost nothing had.

_Yeah. I've actually met some who aren't so bad so far,_ Ami posted, again with a smiley face. _We get together during lunch and snicker at all the preppy girls' outfits that probably took hours to put together. I don't go to the same junior high as T and Jay anymore._

_You didn't move, did you?_ Hikaru posted, wondering if her parents possibly could have pulled the rug out from under her feet like his had. She wasn't chatting with him from the Congo now, was she?

_Nah. My dad got a pay raise and there was an incident with one of the seniors getting pregnant, so my parents decided to switch me to that all-girls' place down the block,_ she posted. _So now I just hang out with the boys after school most of the time._

_Oh,_ Hikaru typed, lacking anything else to say. _Hey, you think it'd be a good idea to get them online now so I can apologize to them too?_

There was a pause before her reply appeared, which made his heart sink uncomfortably.

_Maybe not now,_ she finally posted. _I know Jay was still kind of mad at you last time he mentioned. _

Hikaru winced, though he couldn't honestly protest he didn't deserve that. But even with a little more distance and new people he'd met, Jamal had still been his best friend since he was nine.

_Sorry, Ru,_ Ami posted.

_Yeah,_ he typed. _It's okay, really. _Now he just felt like hiding from thoughts of school and of America, even though irrationally in general he felt better. _I gotta go, but... talk to you later?_

_Sure,_ she posted. _Hey, next time tell me silly stuff about the culture and language and all. I want to hear about all the dumb things you've said to offend people._

_I haven't,_ he posted indignantly. _Geez, why would I want to make more trouble for myself? One of the first words I learned was sorry!  
_

.

Hikaru glared at the goban in front of him, in particular the offending stone his grandfather had just placed. But his grandfather was glaring at him, and he had a pretty stubborn look that suggested he might not just let it go and keep playing unless Hikaru took back the muttered comment that should have fallen under the right of free speech, so reluctantly he sighed, "Gomen."

His grandfather only frowned.

"Sorry!" Hikaru repeated, lapsing into English, but feeling slightly inclined to sulk. What more did the old man want? "Okay, so maybe it was rude--I said gomen!"

The old man looked sterner, then started lecturing him in Japanese he could understand less and less as he reacted on what sounded like a million different specific versions of just saying sorry, of which gomen was apparently the least appropriate for everything.

"Aw man, I already have a tutor," Hikaru groaned, not even bothering to try to translate. "I'm only here for Go, Gramps! Can't we just play?"

"You speak sloppy," his grandfather said firmly, and then just to further insult him indicated several stones on the board pointedly. "Your play sloppy. You will improve both."

"I'm amateur Meijin just like you were!" Hikaru retorted, this time cobbling it together in Japanese. Which probably emphasized his grandfather's point about his speech, but he didn't care about that.

"You're losing," came the implacable reply. Hikaru stewed, unable to truthfully deny that. The old man had gotten him with a series of hands almost as clever as Sai's--he hadn't been paying enough attention to every possibility, since no one was as good as Sai.

"I thought grandparents were supposed to be nice to their grandkids," he finally grumbled also in Japanese, crossing his arms childishly.

"Grandchildren are supposed to please their grandparents," his grandfather returned.

Hikaru scowled, focused, and slapped down a stone, only to have the old man smack at his hand and scold him for disrespecting the gamepiece. "And sit in seiza!" he added just as Hikaru was opening his mouth to complain again.

Hikaru closed it, glared at him suspiciously, then asked in the best Japanese he could, "This is for-my-own-good stuff, isn't it?"

"Better." His grandfather patted his head--then smirked. Hikaru was hard pressed to keep glaring rather than show any amusement. With greater restraint, he picked up his stone again and set it down gently in the same place, but he didn't change his cross-legged position.

"Seiza is stupid. I refuse to do things just because other people do."

"Seiza demonstrates respect. You ever play a professional, you sit in seiza," his grandfather commanded.

"I'm not sitting in seiza."

"It is the mark of a true player who can sit in seiza through a whole game."

Hikaru scowled at him, fighting the immediate instinct to switch positions just to prove that he darn well could sit on his legs through a whole game if he wanted to. His grandfather smirked at him again, then ruffled his hair.

"Stupid Gramps," Hikaru muttered, switching to English, smoothing his hair out again. He was vaguely surprised the old man hadn't fussed at him for his new bangs, especially since his father had started and then given him a dark stare but said nothing.

His grandfather gave him a look he was rapidly coming to recognize.

"Alright, alright, gomen--I mean shitsurei-deshi-whatever!"

His grandfather started the whole lecture on apologies all over again. Hikaru wound up--complainingly--making even more effort to learn those than he did with Danielle, realizing that he had better start actually learning them just because he literally wouldn't hear the end of it until he did.

.

"Okay, Sai." Hikaru took a deep breath, positioned his fingers over the laptop keyboard, and let out the air in his lungs in a _whoosh_. "Here we go."

With the ghost observing and the conversion software active, he logged into NetGo, navigated to the forums, and began composing the first ever message from Jaro, taking the greatest pains he could with Sai's help to make sure it was grammatically correct and proper word choices in Japanese. When he finally finished and clicked Post, holding his breath again, the new thread appeared, announcing in plain text no different from the titles below it,

_Jaro challenges all pros._


	19. In which Hikaru questions Sai's past

A/N: First off, my sincerest apologies that this chapter is so much later than usual. The only reason I have to offer is "writer's block sucks." Really. XP

Fortunately, though, I have finally brainstormed my way through it (with much useful feedback from my lovely beta), so we should be set for another nice long run before (I mean _if_) this happens again. :) And to get back into things--may I present for your reading enjoyment the obliviousness that is Hikaru. Yes, you may throw things. Although I doubt bricks would penetrate his skull. ^_^ Also, new characters!

.

**Stepping Stones**

~**19**~ In which Hikaru questions Sai's past ~

"Hey, Sai. What's up with you haunting a goban?" Hikaru idly wondered aloud, placing a stone on the board between them.

The ghost just gave him a petulant scowl, presumably either because he wasn't paying appropriate attention to their game or because he couldn't understand the question, and Hikaru wished briefly for the ease of communication with his laptop. He was currently doing his best to pretend his laptop no longer existed for the moment, though, so that was out. The quality of Jaro's online opponents had actually dropped dramatically since they issued their challenge to the good ones out there. Hikaru couldn't tell if the ghost was heartbroken about it or just pouting like a five-year-old, but for himself scorn had done an excellent job replacing the last vestiges of his fear and he was determined to get those players to do what he wanted somehow--exactly how was a bit iffy, but he'd think of something. Stupid faceless online population.

But for the moment he just sighed, summoned his patience and organized his garbled double vocabulary, and repeated the question in Japanese.

Sai gave him a surprised blank look. Hikaru resisted the urge to drag out his battered old translation dictionary, determined to get through one conversation with the ghost without having to revert to a hunt-and-point approach, even if for some reason it was harder to understand than most of the other people he'd tried talking to.

But finally the ghost started picking through an answer, suddenly looking preoccupied and distant as though he had forgotten he was actually talking to Hikaru at all, which Hikaru pieced together as involving the goban, Sai, a "hokano igo no sensei" which he interpreted as just 'Go teacher' and someone named Shuusaku Torajiro. He also thought Sai mentioned "Heian," which he was pretty sure was some old period of Japanese history, and wondered if such a childish spirit could really be that old if it meant it was from that period.

"Oh," he said, when the ghost finished, feeling that that had not been particularly revelatory or even interesting. "So you just kinda hang around playing with people who find you or something. Okay."

He went back to the game, no longer curious. Sai gave him an annoyed look, probably because he couldn't understand the English and Hikaru didn't bother translating. Or maybe the ghost's backstory was more interesting to itself--definite difference from real people then.

Then again, it lived in an old storage shed. Playing and remembering games probably really was the most fascinating its life got.

Hikaru shook his head to himself and resolved to somehow definitely get real pros involved in Jaro's online challenge. Maybe take the poor thing out for soccer-dodgeball again too, just to give it some fresh air. Or did ghosts even breathe...?

Briefly, the teenager thought about asking the spirit 'How did you die?' But that had probably been extremely traumatic--who would want to remember _death_, after all--and even Hikaru wasn't that insensitive. "C'mon, let's keep play--"

A sudden rapping on the shed door interrupted him. For a second both Hikaru and Sai sat there staring at each other in surprise, then Hikaru got up to open it, thinking it must be his mother and wondering what she could possibly want. She'd always treated the shed as his private clubhouse before.

But it was the neighborhood kid he'd lured in before to test Sai's visibility standing there, with another few kids behind him. "Hey," the lead kid said bluntly, in Japanese of course, which Hikaru automatically tried to concentrate on understanding even though his mind had gone blank. "You playing that game? They want to learn it."

Hikaru considered for a second, wondering if he had heard right. "'Scuse me," he said even though they wouldn't understand English, closed the door, turned and grinned at the ghost hovering by the goban, looking on with an anxious expression. "Hey, Sai," he said nonchalantly. "Wanna teach a bunch of squirts Go? I can place stones and talk for you."

It was the perfect distraction to get the ghost's mind off their recent less than stellar online matches, maybe even enough to let Hikaru start using his laptop again without having to move it back to his room or feel guilty. Assuming Sai had any teaching ability, of course. But Hikaru could probably help out a little there if need be--it had been sort of fun lecturing those bunny insei that once a while ago.

Sai said something uncertainly that sounded like a question. Hikaru almost didn't even mind having to translate himself to Japanese again, so pleased was he by his new idea.

The ghost's face bloomed into thrilled disbelief and it started chattering a mile a minute, waving its fan around every which way. Hikaru opened the shed door again, smiled genially down at the gaggle of kids, and told them cheerfully, "Sure, come on in."

.

There seemed to be a lot more kids around his age running around everywhere in Tokyo, which made Hikaru slightly nervous until he realized that what with Christmas and New Year's coming up their school system must have some kind of winter break just like America's. (That probably also explained, come to think of it, why he seemed to keep hearing the same annoying music here and there and all the new little traditions his father seemed to be puttering around trying to set up--not that Hikaru had been paying any attention.) He relaxed further when he realized that with all the other kids around no one was paying any attention to him, so he was even almost able to feel cheerful as he headed toward the Go institute despite their presences reminding him of his impending return to school.

Then, of course, he found that he hadn't paid enough attention and gotten off at the wrong station--again--only after walking several blocks in what probably would have been the right direction to reach the Institute and therefore planting himself smack dab in the middle of unfamiliar territory. He set off to find another station, grumbling to himself in a mix of English and the few Japanese swear words he took great pains to never practice at home.

He therefore assumed it was the English that attracted the attention of the group of girls sitting outside a restaurant when he noticed them glancing at him and chattering to each other, but instead of pretending they didn't exist and just walking by he stopped suddenly and stared. He was, in fact, so moved that he actually approached them voluntarily just to make sure, gesturing to the beautiful golden arches behind their table with breathless hope, "Mickey D's?"

"Makudonarudo," one of the girls agreed, making the familiar word sound weirdly foreign with Japanese pronunciation, looking like she was suppressing a giggle. The others at the table definitely were. "Amerikajin desu ka?"

"Ye--hai," Hikaru agreed. For the first time he realized he was speaking with Japanese kids his own age who didn't know English, not to mention being girls, but that made it a bad time and place to lose his cool so he just went with the first thing to pop into his head. Which was introducing himself. Danielle had actually specifically taught him how several times, even though he'd never used it with anyone else. "I'm Hikaru--Shindo Hikaru desu." No _-kun_ when referring to himself, and was that one phrase 'pleased to meet you' or 'how do you do,' and why did they have to sound so different... "Hajimashite?"

A couple of the girls giggled again, but they all looked fascinated. Hikaru wished, probably for the first time in his life, that they thought he was cute or something rather than an exotic zoo specimen. But he was still communicating, apparently successfully, which was cause for celebration all on its own.

No, wait... darn it. He'd forgotten a syllable in there somewhere, whichever phrase it was. No wonder they were laughing at him.

"Hajimemashite," the first girl replied with a smile that didn't seem _too_ amused, and then they all introduced themselves before he realized that was going to happen and so he only caught pieces of their names. The first one started with Fuji, which unfortunately distracted him by reminding him of Sai, but he was pretty sure her first name was Kari. Since he figured he couldn't make any bigger a fool of himself he tried repeating their names and getting them corrected, in the middle of which he somehow wound up sitting down with them in an extra chair beside _A_-kari, drinking a triple thick milkshake despite the cold weather that sent him into heavenly bliss and wallowing in beautiful fantasies of endless hamburgers, french fries, and _ketchup_. Even though he really was still heading to the Go institute.

"You go to Haze?" he fairly confidently understood one of the girls (Kumiko, unless that was the one sitting beside her and she was Naara) ask when they were done laughing at his mangling of their names. He blinked in surprise, recognizing the name as that of the school he was being consigned back to after winter break was over.

"Wait--_you_ guys go to Haze?" he asked in return, dumbfounded. He couldn't possibly now be sitting and getting along with some of the kids who had made his life torture there before, could he?

The girls just giggled again, of course--honestly, they were reminding him why the only girl he'd ever actually liked was Ami, but he was still too pleased with his interaction to mind.

"American!" one of the girls (Suzu) repeated in a triumphant sing-song tone, as if she had just won an argument.

"You're the transfer," another one half-checked, half-explained to him, which unfortunately suggested that the students still remembered his disastrous first try at attending. He'd been trying to convince himself that no one would.

"We thought you were..." Akari confessed, before adding a word that he could only guess translated to either 'cool,' or 'stuck up,' both of which made no sense, and then looked at him with something weirdly like shyness. "Transfer from America, your--hair--" she gestured toward his bangs, "--never talking to anyone. You don't know much Japanese?"

"Nope. Only the very basics," Hikaru agreed, relieved and incredulous. They hadn't realized he had no idea what any of them were saying? Wouldn't that have been obvious when the teachers had dragged him up in the front of the class each first time and made him stand there in hideous silence for a moment when he was presumably supposed to have been introducing himself?

"Oh, you're fine," one of them encouraged, followed by another's, "Keep trying." The third, who he noted as probably the most honest one, told him, "Your accent is bad," and Akari, beside him, suggested, "Are you coming back soon? We can help if you need it."

"Thanks," Hikaru told them, gratified, mostly just because it would be nice to recognize friendly faces when he had to go back in the classrooms. Even if they were girls. "Yeah, I'm going back after New Year's, but I'm a little busy now... do you know where the nearest train station is? Back down that street?"

They corrected his guess, with slightly complicated and confusing directions given at least two of them seemed to be talking at once around each other, but Hikaru finally got free of their company and was on his way again, mind already refocused, this time resolved to pay closer attention to the right stop to get off at. The location of the McDonald's, though, was already permanently seared into his memory at the same level as Shangri La. He could stop by again on the way home and get a Big Mac for dinner. Then he could find a reason to go out tomorrow morning and get a bacon egg and cheese for breakfast... or pancakes... oh, pancakes... _syrup_...

.

The receptionist lady at the Go institute, rather than kindly ignoring Hikaru when he arrived, actually took notice of him the first time he hoped she wouldn't to tell him, "Food and drink only allowed in the lunch room."

Hikaru gave her a very insincere smile meant to indicate that of course that was where he was going and hurried on up the stairs, clutching and sucking on his milkshake possessively. He felt a bit like a baby with the straw clamped between his teeth, but that wasn't nearly enough to make him let go of the first true sugar rush he'd gotten in heaven knew_ far_ too long. Then he wandered around, having to duck to the side every time an adult passed who might have noticed his milkshake and therefore, of course, getting lost. He might have felt slightly grumpy wondering why a Go building had to be so big anyway if he'd been operating on his usual priorities, but as long as he was still holding Mickey D's Golden Arches between his hands everything else was just petty, earthly concerns.

He discovered a new room as he surreptitiously poked around for anything familiar, and was drawn in from sheer curiosity when he discovered shelves upon shelves of what appeared to be records of some kind--if they were accounting type stuff, why would there a whole room full of them? And why not organize them in filing cabinets or electronically? Just further proof of Japanese old people following tradition instead of getting with the times?

He pulled one paper out a little at random to see what it was, and was instantly hooked. A Go game--a finished one, judging by how full the board depicted was, and with the moves apparently labeled to explain the order every stone had been placed in. It took a little work to figure out the system, but Hikaru barely even noticed. What a great idea, recording matches. Was the entire room full of Go records?

Reluctantly, but far less reluctantly than he would have been just a moment before, Hikaru sucked on his milkshake hurriedly one last time, registering the slurp of air as his cup emptied, then set it aside by the door and wiped his wands on his jacket. He couldn't get wet fingerprints on the paper; whoever noticed was sure to want to kill him. Maybe these were pro matches documented here; maybe he could get an idea how he really leveled up to them. And pick up a few tricks to try against the ghost to maybe actually give him an edge for once. And Sai--he could probably tell if Sai could beat the players too, surely? and maybe even figure out if Sai's best opponents online even were pro level.

Hours later, Hikaru's stomach finally prompted him to leave behind the game records for a while and he managed to wander, not into any area he recognized, but into Waya. "Konnichiwa!" he said cheerfully, at which Waya grinned and replied something he couldn't focus hard enough to catch.

"I was looking for you, actually," he continued, guessing the subject, not bothering over the language barrier for once since his mind felt it needed to rest after concentrating so long. "Didn't have anything in particular to do--" originally, anyway, "--so I thought I'd drop in and see how that pro test thing is going for you guys. You must be done by now, right? How long is it supposed to be again? I was thinking about it and I can see maybe taking all day for a test, but unless it's like a series of them..."

Waya knuckled his head, which made Hikaru automatically duck and scowl, and slung his arm over Hikaru's shoulder as he sauntered into a hallway the younger teen thought might be sort of familiar. A moment later Isumi approached, looking first surprised and then pleased as he spotted them.

"Konnichiwa!" Hikaru repeated.

"Is evening now, Shindo," Isumi remarked with a polite but suppressing-amusement expression. "Better to say 'konbanwa'."

"You can tell me, and I bet I'll totally not remember this time tomorrow," Hikaru said with undaunted cheerfulness. "My brain is not taking lessons right now. I'm starving. You guys wanna head to this McDonald's I found if you're done here? My treat even."

Waya and Isumi both readily agreed. Along the way to the station Hikaru asked again about their pro tests, and received an unapologetic snort of laughter from Waya and another valiantly attempted but unsuccessful suppression of amusement from Isumi. "We explain," Isumi assured him while Waya was still laughing, before Hikaru could grow annoyed if he felt like it and contemplate doing something to get him back. But then, instead of doing so, he glanced around and asked, "Where are we going to?"

"Mickey D's," Hikaru reminded him. "You'll love it. I found one at... ahm..." He managed to remember and pronounce the directions successfully, which made him proud of himself.

Isumi looked slightly puzzled. "Okay, but is one closer."

Hikaru came to a dead stop. "What? There is? There's more than one? You guys know McDonald's? Could I have been getting real food all along if I'd just known to go looking?"

Isumi tried to look apologetic and just related the conversation to Waya instead of answering him.

"Why didn't you ever _say_?" Hikaru demanded petulantly, not wailing but only by force of will.

Waya just started laughing at him again.


End file.
